Updated 11 April 2019
The inspection:
• We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the registered persons are 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.
• We visited the administrative office of the service on 12 March 2019. We contacted by telephone people who used the service, their relatives and care staff on 21 March 2019 and 22 March 2019.
Inspection team:
• One inspector.
Service and service type:
• 4Life Healthcare Services is a domiciliary care service and a supported living service. A domiciliary care service provides personal care to people living in their own homes. A supported living service provides care and support to people living in supported living settings so that they can live as independently as possible. Under this arrangement people's care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. At the time of our inspection the service was only operating as a domiciliary care service.
• It provides a service to older people, people living with dementia, people with mental health conditions and people with learning and/or physical adaptive needs.
• There were 30 people using the service at the time of our inspection. Most of the people lived in Canterbury but the service also covered Faversham and Sittingbourne.
• There was a registered manager. 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.
Notice of inspection:
• This inspection was announced. We gave the registered persons 48 hours’ notice. This was because they are sometimes out of the office supporting staff or visiting people who use the service. We needed to be sure that they would be available to contribute to the inspection.
What we did:
• We used information the registered persons sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require registered persons 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.
• Reviewed other information we held about the service. This included notifications of incidents that the registered persons had sent us since our last inspection. These are events that happened in the service that the registered persons are required to tell us about.
• Invited feedback from the commissioning bodies who contributed to purchasing some of the care provided by the service. We did this so that they could tell us their views about how well the service was meeting people's needs and wishes. This information helps support our inspections.
During the three days of our inspection we did the following:
• Spoke by telephone with two people who used the service and with seven relatives.
• Spoke with five care staff and the office administrator.
• Met with both the directors of the company one of whom was also the registered manager.
• Reviewed documents and records that described how care calls had been completed and personal care provided for four people.
• Reviewed documents and records relating to how the service was run including health and safety, the management of medicines, learning lessons when things had gone wrong, obtaining consent and the delivery of training.
• Reviewed the systems and processes used to assess, monitor and evaluate the service.