Updated 28 August 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 team consisted of one inspector.
Service and service type:
The service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to adults living in their own homes with a range of needs.
Not everyone using the service received regulated activity. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with personal care, that is 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 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.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection visit to ensure the registered manager and senior staff were available. We visited the office on 8 May 2019 to see the registered manager and office staff and to review care records, policies and procedures. We contacted people who use the service as well as care staff by telephone on 17 May 2019
What we did:
We require providers to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We call this the Provider Information Return (PIR). This information helps support our inspections.
The law requires providers to notify us of certain events that happen during the running of a service. We reviewed notifications submitted to us by the provider.
During the inspection:
We spoke with the registered manager, the nominated individual and the quality and compliance manager. We reviewed care and support documents for three people. We also reviewed three staff recruitment files, records of concerns and complaints, electronic medicines administration records, caregiver feedback reports, records of staff meetings and the registered manager's quality assurance records. In addition, we reviewed the provider’s compliments file and a number of case studies which detailed care and support people had received. We also reviewed a spreadsheet compiled by the provider, containing evidence examples for all of the key areas.
After the inspection we attempted to contact four members. We received responses from two members of staff. We also spoke with two people who used the service and one relative. We attempted to contact a health professional who had worked with staff from the service but received no response. We also reviewed additional evidence sent to us by the provider including policies and procedures, details of staff training in assessment, compliments and comments from staff, people and professionals.