Bridge Care Services Limited

Updated 27 June 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was 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.

This inspection took place over four days and included a visit to the office on 26 April 2018 and interviews on the telephone over three days on the 24 April and 2, 3 May 2018. The registered provider received 24 hours notice to ensure staff were available at the office to assist with the inspection. The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector visiting the office and an expert by experience carrying out telephone interviews. 'An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection we reviewed information that we held about the service and the service provider. This included safeguarding and incident notifications which the provider had told us about. Statutory notifications are information the provider is legally required to send to us about significant events such as accidents, injuries and safeguarding notifications. The provider also completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

Since the last inspection we had been liaising with the local authority and we considered this information as part of the planning process for this inspection.

During inspection, we reviewed a variety of documents such as policies and procedures, four care records of people being supported by the service, a sample of medicine administration records, four staff personnel files, recruitment practices, supervision and appraisal records, training records, records relating to safety checks and quality assurance systems.

We spoke with 10 people provided with support by the service, two relatives, the registered manager and provider and eight support staff.

Updated 27 June 2018

This inspection was carried out over four days and included a visit to the office on 26 April 2018 and interviews on the telephone covering three days on the 24 April and 2, 3 May 2018. Our visit on the 26 April gave the provider just 24 hours’ notice to make sure staff were available at the office for the inspection. At the last inspection on 21 September 2016 we rated the service as requires improvement overall. We identified two breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) 2014, which related to, supervision of staff and effective governance systems.

This inspection was to check satisfactory improvements had been made and to review the ratings. The provider sent us an action plan that detailed how they would make improvements to become compliant with the regulations. At this inspection we found improvements to the service and the regulations were met.

Bridge Care Services is a domiciliary care agency that provides support to people who live in their own home, both older people and some younger adults with disabilities. They provide a service throughout the Stockport area to people who have a service commissioned via the local authority and to people who are privately funded. The office is situated in the centre of Marple on the first floor of an office building. The office did not have a lift or disabled facilities. However, the registered manager advised they would always make arrangements to see people in their own home to meet their needs.

A registered manager was in place. 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.

We received positive comments from relatives and people receiving support. Overall, they were very positive about the service provided with lots of opinions made about how staff got to know them and provided very personal care and support.

The registered manager had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service. Governance systems had been developed to show appropriate management and review of the service.

Staff were given appropriate support through a programme of training and on-going supervision, and an annual appraisal. Staff said the training provided them with the skills and knowledge they needed to do their jobs.

Staff were aware of their responsibilities in keeping people safe and had received training in safeguarding adults. Staff responsible for supporting people with their medicines had received training to ensure they had the competency and skills required.

The provider had a safe system for the recruitment of staff and was taking appropriate steps to ensure the suitability of workers.

People told us that staff usually arrived on time, and they generally had no issues about staff turning up for duty. The service had a monitoring system that continually checked the promptness of their visits and could take action, if staff were running late for any reason.

Support plans contained up to date, information about each person’s care and support. The registered manager used a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of the service. They carried out a regular checks and visits to each person to make sure the care and support was a good standard and met each person’s needs.

There was a complaints procedure in place. The majority of people who used the service told us they knew how they could raise a complaint if they needed to and had no hesitation to approach staff about any issues.