UK Prime Care Services

Updated 25 February 2023

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.

This was a targeted inspection to check whether the provider had met the requirements of the Warning Notice in relation to Regulation 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

UK Prime Care Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

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 previous registered manager deregistered on 15 June 2022. They had not been involved in the previous inspections carried out in October 2021 and July 2022. They had also not been responsible for the day to day running of the service. We liaised with the nominated individual throughout this inspection and the previous inspections. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

At the last inspection, the nominated individual told us a manager was in the process of being recruited and was in the early stages of the application process. However, the manager was no longer part of the organisation and their continued to be no registered manager responsible for the running of the service.

Notice of inspection

We gave the provider a few days’ notice because we were aware they were a small service and not always located in the office and we needed to ensure they would be available to assist us with the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 19 January 2023 and ended on 6 February 2023. We requested a range of documents related to people’s care that were sent to us by the provider between 19 and 24 January 2023. We visited the office location on 24 January 2023 to see the nominated individual and to review further records related to the service. We made calls to people who used the service, their relatives and care staff between 19 and 6 February 2023.

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) dated 17 November 2022. 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 reviewed the previous inspection report, the warning notice that was served and the provider’s action plan that was submitted after the last inspection. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We reviewed a range of records related to 6 people’s care and support. This included people’s care plans, risk assessments, medicines records for 1 person and 4 staff files in relation to recruitment. We also reviewed records related to the management of the service, which included daily care logs, samples of staff supervision and policies and procedures.

We spoke with 6 staff members. This included the nominated individual, the care coordinator and 4 care workers.

We contacted 5 people and spoke with 1 person and 3 relatives as not everyone was able to fully communicate with us over the telephone.

We provided formal feedback to the nominated individual via email on 27 January 20

Updated 25 February 2023

About the service

UK Prime Care Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to younger disabled adults, older people, including people living with dementia. 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.

At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting seven people in the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Lewisham.

People’s care was funded through a local authority direct payment agreement. A direct payment is the amount of money that the local authority has to pay to meet the needs of people and is given to them to have control and choice over who they choose to provide their care.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Although the issues we found did not directly impact the level of care and support people received, improvements had not been made since the last inspection in October 2021. Improvements were still needed with the level of information and quality of the care records and risk assessments in place.

Important information related to people’s care and support was still not always being recorded and safer recruitment practices were still not being followed. The providers monitoring processes were still not effective as they had not picked up all the issues we found during this inspection.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice. However, the records in place did not always ensure care staff had appropriate information about whether people had capacity to make specific decisions about their care.

Feedback was positive about the kind and caring attitude of the whole staff team and people and their relatives confirmed staff had observed their care before starting and knew them well.

People and their relatives highlighted the positive benefits of having staff who spoke their first language to help communication and to understand their cultural needs.

People and their relatives were positive about the management of the service and had regular communication and opportunities to feedback about their care.

People were supported by staff who enjoyed working for the company and spoke positively about their working environment and the support they received. Staff were also able to speak with the provider in their native language to support them in their role.

People and their relatives told us staff were patient and understanding and regularly went the extra mile to support them. One relative told us they were also provided with emotional support which had a positive impact on their own health and wellbeing.

The provider told us it had been a challenging experience since the last inspection trying to manage the service and acknowledged there were still improvements to be made.

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 requires improvement (published 8 December 2021) and there were breaches of regulation. 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 the provider remained in breach of regulations. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last two consecutive inspections.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Enforcement

We have identified repeated breaches in relation to consent to care, safe care and treatment, good governance and fit and proper persons employed at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

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 to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.