Background to this inspection
Updated
21 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
This inspection was undertaken by three inspectors, including a member of the medicines team 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 in the community in and around Banbury. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 31 people with the regulated activity of personal care.
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 not a registered manager in post. The manager submitted an application to become registered after the inspection was carried out.
Notice of inspection
We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 1 August 2022 and ended on 12 August 2022. We visited the location’s office/service on 4 August 2022.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spoke with the manager, domiciliary regional manager and assistant domiciliary regional manager. We reviewed a range of records. This included two people's care records, a sample of medication records, two staff recruitment files and records relating to the management of the service.
During the inspection we reviewed medicine administration records, assessments and care plans related to medicines for seven people.
We spoke with six people using the service and seven relatives of people to gain their feedback on the service and the care they received.
After the inspection
We phoned and spoke with four care staff to gain their feedback on the service. We contacted two health and social care professionals for their feedback on the service.
Updated
21 September 2022
About the service
The Care Bureau is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community in and around Banbury. It provides a service to younger adults and older people. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 31 people with the regulated activity of 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 service needed to improve their systems to ensure that staff arrived on time for visits, provided care and support for the intended time and took action to minimise people having missed visits.
People, their relatives and health professionals raised concerns about how these were managed which could result in people not having the care and support they were assessed to receive in relation to their needs.
The service had not had a registered manager in place for eight months. The service was being run by a manager who submitted their application to be registered by the Care Quality Commission after the inspection took place.
We found improvements were needed to ensure the management of the service was taking action to improve people’s experience of care delivered.
We found that where feedback was sought, action was needed to ensure this was used to improve the service and people updated so they knew their views were being acknowledged and looked into.
Improvements were needed to ensure that when people, relatives, staff or professionals contacted the office that they received a timely response in relation to their queries.
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 17 April 2018).
Why we inspected
We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding.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 and have identified breaches in relation to regulation 17 (good governance) at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Care Bureau Ltd – Domiciliary Care - Banbury 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.