Pinewood Home Care

Updated 18 April 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection site visit took place on 26 February 2018 and was announced. We gave the agency three days’ notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in. We visited the office to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. Inspection site visit activity started on 26 February 2018 and the inspection ended on 2 March 2018.

This was a routine comprehensive inspection carried out by one adult social care inspector and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

The expert by experience spoke by telephone with five people and a relative to gain their experiences of the agency. We visited two people in their own homes and spoke with them and a relative. We met and spoke with the registered manager, the provider, the care co-ordinator and two care staff. We also contacted staff to ask their views and received responses from three of them.

We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed other information we held about the service. This included previous inspection reports, safeguarding alerts and statutory notifications. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We reviewed the questionnaire responses which we received from people, relatives and staff sent by CQC prior to our inspection. We received eight responses from people receiving a service and two relatives. We also received four staff responses and one health and social care professional responded.

We reviewed information about people’s care and how the service was managed. These included: three people's care files; three staff files which included recruitment records of the staff recruited since our last inspection; staff induction, training and supervision records; quality monitoring systems such as audits, complaints; incident and accident reporting and minutes of meetings.

Updated 18 April 2018

This comprehensive inspection took place on 26 February 2018. On the 1 and 2 March 2018 we contacted people and staff to ask their views about the service. This inspection was announced which meant that the staff and provider knew that we would be visiting.

Pinewood Home Care was previously registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the same registration as Pinewood Nursing Home as it is operated from the same location. This was their second inspection since registering separately with CQC in January 2015. At the time of the inspection they provided personal care and support to younger and older people living in their own homes in Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth and Exeter. They supported people living with dementia and a physical disability. The registered manager made us aware at the inspection that they were in the process of cancelling their service in Exeter.

At the time of our inspection there were 32 people receiving a service from the agency. Although the majority of people using the agency received a regulated activity, some received support visits only. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided. The time of visits people received from the service ranged from 30 minutes to five hours, with the frequency of visits from once a day to four times a day. There was one person who required two care workers at each visit to support them. There were 18 full and part-time staff employed.

At our last inspection in November 2015 we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and on-going monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

At this inspection we found the service remained good.

Why the service is rated Good

The service continued to provide safe care to people. One person commented: “I feel very safe with them and I know that if I have any problems I can always get hold of them.”

The home had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager had returned to work at the service in the summer of 2017 to retake up the role of manager. They had reapplied to CQC and had been re-registered as the registered manager in February 2018.

People received care which was personalised to their needs. Staff knew people well, understood them and cared for them as individuals. People were relaxed and comfortable with the staff who supported them and knew what mattered to them. Staff knew about people’s lives, their families and what they liked to do.

People’s care files were detailed and included information for staff to know how to support each person. New care plans had been put into place by the registered manager which included people’s preferred routines. The care files were regularly updated and reviewed when needed. Health and social care professionals were included in people’s care; staff worked closely with them to make sure they were providing the most appropriate care. People received the care which had been contracted to them by the commissioning service.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff support them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service support this practice.

Risk assessments were in place for each person. These identified the correct action to take to reduce the risk as much as possible in the least restrictive way. People received their medicines safely and on time. Accidents and incidents were carefully monitored, analysed and reported upon.

There were effective staff recruitment and selection processes in place. People received effective care and support from staff who were well trained and competent.

Staff spoke positively about communication and how the registered manager worked well with them and encouraged their professional development.

A number of methods were used to assess the quality and safety of the service people received and made continuous improvements in response to their findings.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.