Comfort Care (Truro) Ltd

Updated 1 May 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 was carried out by an 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.

Service and service type:

Comfort Care is a domiciliary care agency. 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 two working days' notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the registered manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

We visited the service’s office on 8 April 2019 to meet with the registered manager and to review care records and policies and procedures. On 10 and 11 April we conducted telephone interviews with people who were receiving care from the service and staff.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service including any notifications we had received. A notification must be sent to the Care Quality Commission every time a significant incident has taken place. We also reviewed the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a document the provider sends to us describing what they do well and any planned improvements.

We spoke with:

• the registered manager

• five members of staff

• five people using the service

• seven relatives.

We looked at:

• detailed care records for three people

• three staff recruitment files

• training records

• other records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 1 May 2019

About the service: Comfort Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to older people living in their own homes in the Truro area. At the time of the inspection 27 people were receiving personal care. Care visits lasted between 15 and 45 minutes.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People, and their relatives, were highly complimentary about the way in which care was delivered. They told us staff were caring and friendly in their approach. Comments included; “They are all very cheerful, they put my mind at rest. They are just a nice crowd”, “It just takes the pressure off me a bit, somebody coming in that he can chat to. I let them get on with it” and “I think I’m comforted by the fact she is visited by very caring people who will keep me updated.”

• People received care visits from small groups of care workers who they had formed trusting relationships with. Although people were not given information in advance about who would be visiting most said they were not concerned about this. However, some relatives thought the provision of rotas would improve the service.

• Staff also mentioned rotas as an area for improvement. While they considered the organisation to be well managed they said rotas were not provided far enough in advance.

• Everyone told us they liked and respected the registered manager. People and staff told us the registered manager was open, caring, trustworthy and approachable. When things went wrong they responded quickly and took action to make sure lessons were learned.

• Care plans were informative, accurate and regularly reviewed to help ensure they reflected people’s needs. Monitoring systems to highlight when people’s health was at risk of deteriorating were not always implemented. We have made a recommendation about this in the report.

Rating at last inspection: At our last comprehensive inspection in September 2016 we rated the service as Good overall and Requires Improvement in Safe. We carried out a focused inspection in February 2017 when we found improvements had been made and the rating for Safe was improved to Good. (Reports published 7 October 2016 & 22 March 2017)

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection and was planned based on the previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service and plan to inspect it in line with our re-inspection schedule. If we receive any information of concern we may bring our inspection forward.

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