Always Care

Updated 24 July 2021

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 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 one inspector, an assistant inspector and two Expert’s 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 home care agency. It provides personal care to older people living with dementia or disabled adults who are living in their own homes.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service short notice of the inspection visit because staff might be out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

What we did:

Before our inspection, we reviewed all the information we held about this service. This included

notifications the provider is required by law to send us about events that happen within the service.

We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

During our inspection

We spoke by telephone, with six people receiving a service and eight relatives. We met the registered manager who is also a co-owner and spoke by telephone interview with six care staff.

Records we looked at included four care plans, four staff files and a range of documents relating to medicines, accidents, incidents and complaints, satisfaction surveys completed by people who used the service and their relatives and quality assurance reports.

Updated 24 July 2021

Star Care is a home care service that provides personal care to adults in their own home. The service was supporting around 37 people, living in their own homes, at the time of the inspection.

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

Regular training for staff was now up to date and in place for all staff. This meant staff were effectively trained to ensure they were fully competent in their work.

Quality monitoring systems and processes were in place and were now effective. These were used to review feedback and to check care delivery, staff performance and training.

People said they continued to be well cared for and safely supported. Examples of comments made by people and relatives included, “I would recommend the service, happy with what they are doing, no problems”, “Absolutely recommend them, if any concerns or help required they put it right” and “Would give them thirty out of ten.”

People were safe with the staff who supported them. Staff were guided to keep people safe by up to date risk assessments showing how to reduce risks. The staff had an up to date understanding of safeguarding. This meant they knew what to do to keep people safe if they thought they were vulnerable to abuse.

There was a system to monitor and learn from accidents and incidents. Peoples medicines were managed safely. Staff understood how to reduce the spread of infection. People continued to be protected from the risks from unsafe staff. This was because recruitment and selection processes were in place to employ the right kind of staff. There were enough staff deployed to provide care for people.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection

The service was rated Requires Improvement at the last inspection (report published April 2019).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.

At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service in April 2019. Two breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve around staff training and supervision and .

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Effective and Well Led.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

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