Skyline Home Care Services

Updated 21 December 2022

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.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by two inspectors.

Service and service type

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

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 02 December 2022 and ended on 08 December 2022. We visited the location’s office on 02 December 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). 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 intelligence we held on our system. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager. We reviewed 4 people’s care records, including and medicines administration records (MAR). We looked at 4 staff files. We reviewed a range of documents including incident and accident records and audits. We received feedback from 1 person, 2 relatives and 11 care staff.

Updated 21 December 2022

About the service

Skyline Home Care Services is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to 37 people at the time of the inspection.

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

Improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of the regulations. The provider did need more time to embed their governance systems, and we were satisfied the provider was making progress with this.

People were kept safe and staff understood how to mitigate any potential risks. Medicines were safely administered and people received them when they needed them. Staff had plentiful supplies of personal protective equipment [PPE]. Staff arrived on time for care calls, and were recruited safely.

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.

Care plans were personalised, reflecting people’s histories as well as their likes and dislikes. The complaints procedure was clear and people knew how to raise any concerns.

Management was a visible presence and was accessible to people, their relatives and staff. The provider worked in partnership with others to ensure continuity of care for people using the service.

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 26 January 2022).

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

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 19 November 2021. 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 person centred care, safe care and treatment, good governance and fit and proper persons employed.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Responsive and Well-led which contain those requirements.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

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

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation in relation to staffing.

Follow up

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