Gevic Care Agency

Updated 20 June 2023

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 one inspector.

Service and service type

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

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of Inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service to plan our inspection. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection

Inspection activity started with a visit to the office on 24 April 2023. During the inspection we spoke with the registered manager and the care coordinator. We reviewed a range of records including care and support plans for three people. We looked at records of recruitment, training and supervision for three members of staff. After the inspection we made calls to 2 members of staff and 1 person receiving care up to 15 May 2023.

Updated 20 June 2023

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

About the service

Gevic Care Agency is a domiciliary care service which provides personal care to people living in their own homes. CQC only inspects where people receive support with 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 there were three people receiving personal care.

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

Right Support: Model of Care and setting that maximises people’s choice, control and independence. The provider had improved the way they carried out assessments and devised care plans which now contained a good level of detail about people’s needs and preferences. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs. People were protected from the risk of avoidable harm because the risks to people’s health and wellbeing had been assessed and guidelines were in place to ensure staff knew how to mitigate the risks.

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.

Right Care: Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. People’s communication needs were now being assessed and there were guidelines in place to help support better communication between people and care staff. There was information recorded about people’s backgrounds, likes and dislikes to ensure staff had a good understanding of people.

Right Culture: The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. People and their family members were positive about the caring nature of the staff. People told us they were always treated with dignity and respect. Staff were positive about the support they received to fulfil their role.

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 requires improvement (published 31 May 2022) and there were several breaches of regulation.

Why we inspected

We carried out an announced inspection of this service on 30 March 2022 and breaches of regulation were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve the management of risks, medicines, safe recruitment, consent to care and good governance. We undertook this inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation about reviewing the process around monitoring attendance times.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.