P T Care UK Ltd

Updated 24 September 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

The inspection was carried out by one inspector 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.

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 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 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.

Inspection activity started on 23 August 2022 and ended on 24 August 2022. We visited the location’s office on 23 August 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority, professionals who work with 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 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 took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke over the telephone with two people who used the service and eight relatives. We emailed 12 staff to ask a range of questions. We spoke with three care staff in person, a member of clerical staff, the director of the service and the registered manager who is also the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We visited the office location to review written records. We looked at three people's care records. We checked records relating to the management of the service including policies and procedures and quality assurance records.

Updated 24 September 2022

About the service

PT Care UK Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care. The agency office is based near Sheffield city centre. Support is currently provided to people living in their own homes in Sheffield. At the time of this inspection the service was supporting 39 people with personal care. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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.

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

The provider had not operated safe recruitment practices when employing new staff.

The provider had not implemented an effective governance system to ensure people, their relatives and staff had regular opportunities to provide feedback about the service. Feedback must be sought on a regular basis and reviewed to support the service to improve.

Some relatives told us their family members visits were not always carried out at the agreed times and staff did not always stay the agreed length of time. They also told us they were not always informed when staff were going to be late. People said they were satisfied with the times care staff visited. People told us they felt safe using the service.

There were systems and processes in place to minimise risks to people. These included making sure staff knew how to recognise and report abuse.

People’s care plans contained details of risks posed to people, with guidance for staff about any actions they need to take to mitigate those risks.

We have made a recommendation about the risk assessments and care plans for some people.

People said they mostly got their medicines on time although some relatives were not sure their family member always received their ‘as required’ medicines and there had been some issues with medicines not being reordered. Relatives said the registered manager had addressed these issues when brought to their attention.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 18 December 2018).

Why we inspected

We received some concerns in relation to the management of medicines and people’s care records and risk assessments. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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 good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.