25 February 2019
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Not everyone using Mayfair Homecare – Newbury receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.
Mayfair Homecare – Newbury does not currently have a registered manager. 'A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.' The previous registered manager had left in January 2019. The new manager is in post and currently in the process of applying to be registered.
People’s experience of using this service:
People were supported for by a consistent staff team who were kind and caring and appropriately trained. Staff had good relationships with people and knew them well. People were encouraged and supported to maintain their independence. They spoke highly of the care and support they received. “The carers are brilliant, I can’t fault them.”
Appropriate numbers of staff were employed, however safe recruitment practices had not always been followed. The current provider had bought out the previous provider of the service in 2016, a number of staff transferred across to the new service. However, the new provider had not assured themselves that people employed by the previous provider had been recruited safely.
Feedback was sought from people and staff through meetings and questionnaires. People told us they felt comfortable in raising any concerns or issues.
Care plans were person centred and detailed people’s support needs. However, records were not always accurate. Some risk assessments were inaccurate which meant people were at potential risk because staff did not have the most appropriate information and guidance. Quality assurance audits were carried out regularly. Some of those completed were inaccurate, recording information as being present when it was not. Branch audits were also regular. Specific issues identified were addressed but the service failed to identify that some specific issues were actually more widespread.
We identified two breaches of the regulations. Safe recruitment practices were not always followed and governance systems were not effective. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.
For more details, please see the full report which is on CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection: Good (July 2017).
Why we inspected: This was a responsive, focussed inspection prompted by a notification of an incident in which a person using the service was subject to alleged abuse. This incident is subject to a criminal investigation and as a result this inspection did not examine the circumstances of the incident.
However, the information shared with CQC about the incident indicated potential concerns about the management of safe care and risk. This inspection examined those risks. This has been reported on under the safe and well led domains only.