Background to this inspection
Updated
27 August 2022
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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.
Inspection team
This inspection was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type
Care4UHomecare Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.
Registered Manager
This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.
Notice of inspection
We gave the provider a few days’ notice because we were aware they were a small service and not always located in the office and we needed to ensure they would be available to assist us with the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 19 July 2022 and ended on 5 August 2022. We requested a range of documents related to people’s care that were sent to us by the provider between 19 and 27 July 2022. We visited the office location on 21 July 2022 to see the registered manager and to review further records related to the service. We made calls to people who used the service, their relatives and care staff between 25 July and 1 August 2022.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. 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 reviewed the previous inspection report and the provider’s action plan that was submitted after the last inspection. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We reviewed a range of records related to three people’s care and support. This included people’s care plans, risk assessments, medicines records for two people and three staff files in relation to recruitment and training. We also reviewed records related to the management of the service, which included a training matrix, samples of people’s daily logs and quality assurance records.
We spoke with six staff members. This included the registered manager and five care workers.
Due to the nature of some people’s current health conditions, we were only able to speak with one person’s relative, as the person was unable to fully communicate with us over the telephone.
After the inspection we continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at further recruitment and supervision records, samples of staff rotas, medicines competency assessments and a range of policies and procedures.
We provided formal feedback to the registered manager via email on 5 August 2022.
Updated
27 August 2022
About the service
Care4UHomecare Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older people, including people receiving support at the end of their life. 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.
At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting five people.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
One person’s relative told us they continued to be happy with the current level of care and had a good working relationship with the registered manager. Where new staff had been recruited, they were reassured the registered manager worked with them to monitor their skills and experience.
New staff carried out shadowing and observation sessions before they started working to understand how people liked to be supported. Staff told us this gave them confidence to support people to the best of their ability.
Feedback was positive about the registered manager and people and their relatives were given opportunities to give feedback about their care.
The registered manager had made improvements and followed their action plan since the last inspection to ensure issues had been addressed and people received a good standard of care. Improvements were related to recruitment procedures and the management of people’s assessed risks.
People were supported by staff who spoke positively about the registered manager and felt respected and valued as part of the organisation. Staff were well supported and were given feedback about their performance and advice and guidance to learn and improve.
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 6 August 2021) and there were breaches of regulations. We also made a recommendation in relation to the management of people's medicines. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 30 April 2021. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve on breaches related to safe care and treatment and fit and proper persons employed.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care4UHomecare Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.