Updated 11 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:
This inspection was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type:
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults.
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 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in. Inspection site visit activity started on 17 April 2019 and ended on 17 April 2019. We visited the office location 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 already held about this service.
• This included details of its registration, previous inspection reports and any notifications of serious incidents the provider had sent us.
• Due to technical problems, the provider was not able to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does 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 contacted the host local authority to seek their views about the service.
During the inspection we reviewed various documents. These included:
• Five sets of care records relating to people including care plans and risk assessments.
• Medicine records.
• Policies and procedures.
• Quality and assurance systems and records.
• Five sets of staff records.
• We spoke with three staff; the registered manager, nominated individual and administrator.
After the inspection we gathered further evidence:
• We spoke with two people who used the service and two relatives by telephone.
• We spoke with two care assistants by telephone.
• The provider sent us further records relating to the service including minutes of staff team meetings.