Updated 3 January 2020
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, 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 undertaken by an adult social care inspector 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 as well as specialist housing. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks relating to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.
The service had a registered manager. 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
This was an announced inspection which took place over two days on 2 and 3 December 2019.
We announced the inspection as we had to plan interviews with people using the service and to ensure key staff where present when we visited the agency offices.
What we did
Our planning considered information the provider sent us since being registered. This included information about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse or other concerns. We obtained information from the local authority commissioners who work with the service.
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.
On 2 December we made phone calls to people using the service to gain feedback. On 3 December we visited the offices of the agency to speak with the managers and key staff as well as inspect records.
We spoke with nine people using the service and three family members to ask about their experience of care. We also spoke with the deputy manager [the registered manager was not available at the time], office staff and six members of care staff.
We looked at four people’s care records and a selection of other records including quality monitoring records, training records, staff records, and records of checks carried out on equipment used for staff training.