edyn.care Head Office

Updated 18 May 2021

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by one three inspectors and one 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 community care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service had a manager registered with the CQC. This means they are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced. We gave the service a weeks’ notice of the inspection because we wanted to analyse feedback, we received from people using the service, their relatives and staff to help us plan our inspection. In addition, we needed to be sure the office-based managers and staff would be available to support our inspection. Inspection activity started on 20/04/2021 and ended on 29/04/2021. We visited the providers offices on 22 and 29/04/2021.

What we did before the inspection

The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us 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. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

We also made telephone or email contact with three people using the service, four relatives, seven care staff, and one health and social care professional to find out their experiences of using or working for or with this provider.

During the inspection

We spoke with four office-based staff when we visited the providers offices including, the registered manager, the Chief Operating Officer and a recruitment specialist .

In addition, we looked at a range of records. This included three people’s care records, three staff files in relation to their recruitment, training and supervision. A variety of other records relating to the overall management and governance of the service were also reviewed, including medication records, audits, incident and accident reports and safeguarding documents.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We requested the provider send us additional evidence after our inspection in relation to governance documents, policies and other records.

Updated 18 May 2021

Edyn Care Head Office is a domiciliary care service providing live-in care and support to people in their own homes. At the time of the inspection there were 26 people receiving personal care support. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects where people receive personal care. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service

Feedback from people using the service and their relatives was positive about the care and support they received from carers. They told us they felt safe in the presence of carers and there were no concerns about their safety. The provider worked with partner agencies to investigate any safeguarding concerns and used these as a way to learn and improve how they delivered care to people.

There were robust recruitment procedures in place which meant that people were cared for by carers who were vetted properly. Carers were given adequate breaks whilst living with people.

People were supported to take their medicines from carers who had been given the relevant training. Risks to people were identified and the assessments which looked at how the risk could be managed were reviewed on a regular basis. We have made a recommendation to the provider to consider using standard assessment tools to support any judgement relating to risk.

The provider had robust procedures in place for the management of COVID-19. Carers were supplied with adequate personal protective equipment and were subject to regular testing.

Carers received a through induction and ongoing training which meant they were competent to carry out their duties. They were also subject to regular spot checks and supervision to monitor their competency and to give them an opportunity to provide feedback.

The service was well-led. There was a culture of improving through learning. The registered manager was aware of her regulatory responsibilities and encouraged feedback from people, relatives and carers. Robust quality assurance checks were in place which identified any areas of improvement, the provider had an ongoing improvement plan which helped to ensure a good quality of service to people.

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

Rating at last inspection and update.

The last rating for this service was good (published 4 April 2019).

Why we inspected

We received some concerns in relation to the management of the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of Safe and Well-led only.

We also used a targeted approach to look at specific concerns we had about staff training and support under the Key Question of Effective. As we only looked at part of Effective, we have not changed the rating from the previous inspection for this Key Question.

We reviewed all the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for the key questions of Effective, Caring and Responsive were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

Follow up

We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.