Empowering U (East Midlands)

Updated 2 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

The inspection was undertaken 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.

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 a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service two working days’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that a member of the management team would be in the office to support the inspection. Inspection activity started on 13 October 2022 and ended on 1 November 2022. We visited the office location on 13 October 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We did not ask the provider to send us a Provider Information Return prior to this inspection. 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. However, we offered the registered manager the opportunity to share information they felt relevant with us at this inspection.

The inspection was informed by other information we had received from and about the service. This included notifications from the provider. A notification is information about important events, which the provider is required to send us by law.

During the inspection

We looked at 4 people’s care records to check that the care they received matched the information in their records. We reviewed 3 staff files to see how staff were recruited and looked at training records for all of the staff team. We looked at the systems the provider had in place to ensure the quality of the service was continuously monitored and reviewed to drive improvement. We spoke with 2 people’s relatives to get their views of the service. We also received feedback from staff that worked at the service including the registered manager and the 3 nurses employed, 1 of whom was the deputy manager.

After the inspection

We asked the registered manager to email copies of care plans and information regarding the training staff received. They sent this to us within the required timeframe. We also sought feedback from the Clinical Commissioning Groups that commissioned with the provider and other professionals involved in people’s care.

Updated 2 December 2022

About the service

Empowering U is a domiciliary care service. It provides care to children and adults with health conditions, living in their own homes. CQC regulates the personal care and support. There were 21 people who received personal care at the time of the inspection. Of these 14 were adults and 7 were children.

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

People’s representatives confirmed their loved ones were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and told us staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. However, the written information in place didn’t include an assessment of people’s capacity where this was needed. Following receipt of the draft report, the registered manager sent us a capacity assessment that they told us was in place at the time of the inspection. However, this capacity assessment was not decision specific.

People were supported by staff who understood how to protect them from abuse and knew the procedure to follow to report concerns. People’s family members spoke highly of the staff and management team and confirmed staff were caring and friendly. Systems and processes were in place to support people’s safety. People’s needs, including their safety in relation to care were assessed and monitored.

Where people were supported with their medicines these were managed safely. Medicines were administered by staff that had received training and had their competency to administer medicines assessed. When needed people were supported to access health care professionals.

People received support from staff that had undergone recruitment checks to ensure they were suitable for to support them. Staff worked within the providers policy and procedure for infection prevention and control and followed current government guidance related to COVID-19.

Quality monitoring was undertaken and kept under review by the provider to drive improvement. The views of people and their relatives were sought including involvement in decisions relating to their care.

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

This service was registered with us on 11 June 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

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

Follow up

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