Dale Care - Hartlepool Extra Cares

Updated 13 February 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 adult social care 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. The Expert by Experience made phone calls to people who used the service and their relatives.

Service and service type:

Dale Care Hartlepool is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own homes. A registered manager was not in place during our visit, but the manager had applied to the Care Quality Commission to become the registered manager.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection visit because we needed to be sure the management would be in the office. Inspection site visit activity started on 19 December 2018 and ended on 9 January 2019. We visited the office location on all of the days of inspection to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed the information, we held about the service. This included the statutory notifications sent to us by the registered provider about incidents and events that had occurred at the service. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send to us by law. We also contacted the commissioners of the service to gain their views.

The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan how the inspection should be conducted.

During the inspection site visit we spoke with the manager, the provider’s operations manager, the head of recruitment and HR, the marketing and communications manager, the scheme manager, five members of care staff and one of the directors who was the nominated individual. A nominated individual has overall responsibility for supervising the management of the regulated activity and ensuring the quality of the services provided. We looked at care records for seven people, medicine records for 15 people, recruitment records for two staff and other records relating to the management and quality monitoring of the service. We contacted 14 people and three relatives to gather their views about the care and support they received.

Updated 13 February 2019

About the service:

Dale Care Hartlepool is a domiciliary care service which provides support with personal care, shopping and domestic tasks to people living in four extra care schemes in Hartlepool (Albany Court, Bamburgh Court, Laurel Gardens and Richard Court). At the time of this inspection 80 people were using the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

People told us they received safe care. People received support to take their medicines safely and as prescribed. Risks to people's well-being and environmental safety were recorded and updated when their circumstances changed.

People's rights to make their own decisions were respected. People were supported to access health services if needed. People's dietary needs were assessed and, where required, people were supported with their meals.

People received caring and compassionate support from the staff. Staff referred to people in a respectful way. People were complimentary about staff and the positive relationships they had with them. Staff respected people's privacy and dignity and people were supported to be as independent as possible.

People received support that met their needs. Staff knew how to support people in the way they preferred. People knew how to complain.

The service was managed by a manager who had a clear vision about the quality of care they wanted to provide. Staff were aware of their roles and responsibilities. The senior team had a number of quality assurance systems in place and there was a focus on further development. The service worked well with other health and social care professionals.

More information is in the detailed findings below.

Rating at last inspection:

This is the first inspection of this service under the management of Dale Care Limited, who registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage this service in February 2018. We last inspected this service in November 2016 when it was managed by another provider.

Why we inspected:

This was a planned comprehensive inspection based on when the service first registered with CQC.

Follow up:

We will monitor all intelligence received about the service to inform the assessment of the risk profile of the service and to ensure the next planned inspection is scheduled accordingly.