POVA Care Ltd

Updated 6 December 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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of an inspector, a regulatory co-ordinator, and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The Expert by Experience did not visit the service but made telephone calls to people who used the service or their relatives.

Service and service type

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

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. The registered manager was also the Nominated Individual and a co-director of the service.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced. We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local safeguarding team, local authority commissioners of the service and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We reviewed a range of records. This included care and medication records for 5 people. We looked at a variety of records relating to staff training and recruitment, and the management of the service. We spoke with 7 members of staff including the registered manager, a director, the compliance officer, a care co-ordinator and 3 members of care staff. We spoke with 2 people who used the service and 8 relatives.

Updated 6 December 2023

About the service

POVA Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 27 people using the service.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

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 assessment 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 had recently registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right Support

Staff supported people to have choice, control in their care and support. 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. The service was flexible to people’s needs and people told us how the provider was responsive to their changing needs.

Right Care

Staff understood people's cultural needs and provided appropriate care. One person’s relative told us how the care staff allocated to their family member were able to speak with them in their own language. People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people's privacy and dignity. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people's needs and keep them safe. Staff understood people's individual communication needs. People's care, treatment and support plans reflected their needs, and this promoted their wellbeing.

Right Culture

People received good quality care and support because the provider and staff focused on meeting their needs and wishes to enhance their quality of life. People and, where appropriate, their relatives were involved in planning their care. Relatives and staff felt well supported by the management team and able to raise concerns with them. They felt concerns were acted on and lessons learnt when things went wrong. There were systems to monitor and audit the service to help improve quality and people's experiences.

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 Good published 29 December 2018.

Why we inspected

We inspected due to the length of time since the last inspection.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, caring and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for POVA Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

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