True Care

Updated 27 March 2021

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two inspectors.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

The registered provider was an individual who also managed the service on a day-to-day basis. Registered providers 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.

Notice of inspection

We gave the provider a short period of notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 4 February 2021 and ended on 12 February 2021. We visited the office location on 4 February 2021 and contacted people who used the service and staff by telephone after our visit.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the provider and office manager and reviewed a range of records including the care records for three people and four staff files in relation to recruitment and training. We also looked at a range of records relating to the management of the service.

After the inspection

We contacted the relatives of three people who used the service to gather their views. We also contacted three care staff to gather their views of the service. We also reviewed additional training evidence we had asked the provider to send us.

Updated 27 March 2021

About the service

True Care provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria. There were seven people receiving personal care at the time of our inspection.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were protected from abuse. The staff knew how to identify and report concerns about people’s safety. Risks to people’s safety had been identified and managed. The staff had the information and guidance they needed to provide people’s care in a safe way.

There were enough staff to support people. People received care from a small team of staff who they knew. The staff gave people the support they needed to take their medicines safely. The staff followed infection prevention and control procedures to protect themselves and people they cared for from the risk of infection. The provider had systems in place to ensure lessons were learnt from any incidents to further improve the safety of the service.

People received person-centred care that met their needs and took account of their wishes. The provider worked with the staff providing people’s care. They listened to the views of people who used the service, their families and staff to identify how the service could be improved. People told us they would recommend the service. The staff worked in partnership with other services to ensure people consistently received the support they needed. We have made a recommendation about quality audits.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good, (report published 20 April 2018).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to how the provider ensured people were protected against the risk of abuse. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has remained good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe section of this full report.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.