Surrey Heath and Farnham Area Reablement Service Also known as Surrey Heath Borough Council

Updated 1 June 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection was carried out by one inspector. On Monday 29 April 2019 an Expert by Experience made telephone calls to people and family members. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type:

Surrey Heath and Farnham Area Reablement Service is a domiciliary care agency. This service provides care and support to people living in their own homes.

Not everyone using Surrey Heath and Farnham Area Reablement Service received a 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 consider any wider social care provided.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Inspection site visit activity started on 23 March 2019 and ended on 24 March 2019. We visited the office location on the morning of 23 March 2019 and people in their homes in the afternoon. We returned to the office all day on 24 March 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records, staff files, policies and procedures.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit so that people could be informed of our visit and permissions could be sought to arrange home visits.

What we did:

We reviewed information we had received about the service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse; and we sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We assessed the 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.

We met with four people who used the service in their own homes. We spoke to two health and social care professionals. Following the inspection site visit we received feedback from four relatives and four people via the telephone.

We spoke with the registered manager and the senior manager of reablement services. We met with two carers and three team leaders. We reviewed four people’s care files, four Medicine Administration Records (MAR), policies, risk assessments, incident reporting, consent to care and treatment and quality audits. We looked at four staff files, the recruitment process, complaints, and training and supervision records.

Updated 1 June 2019

About the service:

Surrey Heath and Farnham Area Reablement Service is a Surrey County Council service. It is a domiciliary care agency located at Surrey Heath Borough Council offices. The service provides short term reablement support and/or domiciliary care to a wide range of people in their home following either a hospital admission, or a change to the person’s ability or independence. The service support people to regain lost skills, learn new ones, and generally increase their ability and independence.

The service also provides support to people living in four extra care schemes where people lived in their own self-contained flats. These schemes were staffed 24 hours a day.

At the time of our inspection there were 26 people receiving personal care from the reablement service and 33 people in the extra care schemes.

Rating at last inspection:

Good (published 2 November 2016).

Why we inspected:

This inspection was a scheduled inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People, professionals and their families described the staff as caring, kind and friendly. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People and relatives told us they were happy with the service, and that staff had a good understanding of their needs and preferences. People were protected from avoidable harm as staff understood how to recognise signs of abuse and the actions needed if abuse was suspected. There were enough staff to provide safe care and recruitment checks had ensured they were suitable to work with vulnerable adults.

Staff understood the actions needed to minimise the risk of any avoidable harm. The service was responsive when things went wrong and reviewed practices in a timely manner. Medicines were administered and managed safely by trained staff.

The service had an open and positive culture that encouraged reablement of people and involvement of their families, staff and other professional organisations. Leadership was positive and promoted good teamwork. People, professional’s and relatives spoke highly about the management and staff had a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

Checks of safety and quality were made to ensure people were protected and received a good quality service. Work to continuously improve was noted and the registered manager was keen to make changes that would impact positively on people's lives.

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

A full description of our findings can be found in the sections below.

Follow up:

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