Archived: Cumbria Care Domiciliary and Reablement Service - Copeland and Allerdale

Cumbria Care Domiciliary and Reablement Service - Copeland and Allerdale. provides personal care and rehabilitation services. They do not provide domestic services. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided. When the inspection started the service was supporting approximately 150 people.

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

Cumbria Care Domiciliary and Reablement Service - Copeland and Allerdale is operated by Cumbria Care, the in-house provider of Cumbria County Council. The service provided reablement, domiciliary care, crisis care and overnight care to adults in Copeland and Allerdale.

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

People told us they felt safe being supported by the care teams. Staff were suitably recruited, trained and developed. The staff provided respectful, dignified care and support. Staff were experienced and suitably trained to provide reablement support and personal care.

Risks were well managed and good assessment of needs was in place. Care planning covered all aspects of people’s needs and preferences.

No one we spoke with had any complaints but understood how they could air their views about the service.

The management of the service was of an extremely high standard. The registered manager and the provider ensured high quality care and support was provided. The registered manager and the provider had developed the service during the pandemic to ensure needs of people and staff were met. They had developed the domiciliary branch of the service, introduced a crisis intervention service and had made sure the night service in the area was functioning well. People had a range of needs met in a holistic way.

The culture of the service promoted independence and the reablement model could be seen in all parts of the service. The people and staff we spoke with were very satisfied with the service.

Staff welfare had been given high priority during the pandemic. Staff had access to occupational health support. counselling and management support. This meant people received good outcomes because staff were given the right levels of support to continue to be motivated, professional and caring.

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 (published 7/03/2018).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating. We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding to test the reliability of our new monitoring approach

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

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.

Cumbria Care Domiciliary and Reablement Service - Copeland and Allerdale provides reablement services to adults in the Copeland and Allerdale areas. They provide support so that people are helped to recover from illness or medical interventions. The visits are designed around individual needs. The service hopes to help people with recovery within a six week period. At times their intervention means the support is much shorter. After six weeks the support package may be extended depending on the reassessment of need.

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults. Not everyone using Cumbria Care Domiciliary and Reablement Service - Copeland and Allerdale receives the regulated activity; 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 service had a suitably qualified and experienced registered manager who also managed the service in Carlisle. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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 service ensured that the people they supported were as safe as possible. Staff were trained to recognise abuse and suitable systems were in place to ensure that people were protected from harm.

The service had suitably recruited, trained and supervised staff who were deployed appropriately to meet people's support and rehabilitation needs. Appraisals were up to date and detailed. The service had suitable policies and procedures related to disciplinary and grievance matters.

Staff were trained in the administration and management of medicines and these were recorded appropriately.

Infection control matters were managed appropriately with staff receiving training and having access to personal protective equipment.

The registered manager and the senior team had a good understanding of their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. No one supported by the service was being deprived of their liberty. People told us that they were asked for consent before interactions.

Any issues around nutrition and hydration were included in care plans. Staff supported some people to undertake food preparation as part of their recovery.

Staff supported people to access health care support and were trained to call on the support of health care professionals for emergencies. We saw that support workers were contacting health care professionals using their own judgement.

The service was based in a Cumbria County Council office. This was safe and secure. The staff said they thought that being based in the same office as social workers helped them work together. There was a suitable on call system in place with a central contact number that operated from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m every day of the year. Staff and people using the service were very satisfied with this system.

People told us that staff were caring and kind. Staff were trained in person centred care and in all the aspects of privacy and dignity. People could have the support of an advocate if required.

Good assessment of need and ability was in place. Reablement planning encouraged independence and skills building.

The work undertaken was short term and did not include social activities but the work undertaken assisted people to return to previous activities and interests.

There had been no formal complaints about the service and we had evidence to show that people felt able to contact the senior team with any minor issues.

The arrangements around governance had been reviewed and a new management structure was in place. Staff told us that this worked well and they had more time to devote to specific tasks.

Cumbria County Council had suitable policies and procedures in place and these were reflected in the quality monitoring system. Quality monitoring was of a high standard and people's views were taken into account in future planning.