Archived: Plan Care Welwyn Garden City

Updated 23 June 2015

Comprehensive inspection of 10 April 2014

We visited the domiciliary care agency on 10 April 2014. This was an announced inspection, which meant the provider was informed about our visit two days beforehand to ensure managers and staff would be available in the office. Our inspection team was made up of an inspector and an expert by experience, who had experience of domiciliary care services. This person made telephone calls to people who used the service.

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 is meeting the regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and to pilot a new inspection process under Wave 1.

The last scheduled inspection for Plan Care Welwyn Garden City took place on 23 August 2013. The agency was compliant in the five regulations inspected.

Prior to our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. This included looking at safeguarding incidents and notifications sent to us by the provider.

During the inspection process we talked with three people living in the supported living service, telephoned 13 people who lived in their own homes, spoke with six staff, the deputy manager and the registered manager. We looked at 11 people’s care plans and other supporting documents. We observed staff when they interacted and provided care to people. We looked at information about people’s medication and the way medication was administered. We checked information about the mandatory and specialist training that staff had received.

Focused inspection of 18 December 2014

We undertook an announced focused inspection of Care Plan Welwyn Garden City on the 18 December 2014. The inspection was done to check that improvements to meet legal requirements planned by the provider after our 10 April 2014 inspection had been made. The team only inspected the service against three of the five questions we ask about the service; is the service safe? Is the service responsive? Is the service effective? This is because the service was not meeting some relevant legal requirements in these areas. The inspection was undertaken by two inspectors.

During our inspection we spoke with the manager, deputy manager and six staff and 44 people who used the service. We also reviewed any information we held about the service including statutory notifications and enquiries relating to the service. Statutory notifications include information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We reviewed the provider’s action plan and the report from the last inspection. We looked at five care plans and reviewed call logs to assess if calls had been attended on time. We looked at the timesheets for five of the staff. we also looked at the satisfaction surveys completed by people who used the service.

Updated 23 June 2015

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on the 10 April 2014. A breach of legal requirements was found. As a result we undertook a focused inspection on the 18 December 2014 to follow up on whether action had been taken to deal with the breaches.

You can read a summary of our findings from both inspections below.

Comprehensive inspection of 10 April 2014.

Plan Care Welwyn Garden City is a large domiciliary care and supported living agency. It is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide care and support for older people with a range of physical, social and psychological needs. On the day of inspection the agency was providing personal care to 335 people in the community.

The agency had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with CQC to manage the service and shares the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law with the provider.

We spoke with three people in a supported living home who all spoke positively about the service. We telephoned 13 people who received personal care from the agency in their own homes. We received mixed feedback from these people. The three people we spoke with in a supported living home, said they were very happy with the staff, who understood their needs and helped them to remain as independent as possible. Nine out of 13 people we spoke with who received care within their own homes said they were unhappy with the level of communication they experienced with the office staff but were satisfied with the staff who provided their personal care.

When we talked with staff, four were unaware of legislation regarding the Mental Capacity Act 2005, even though training had been provided. This meant staff may not recognise when an assessment under the Act was necessary to protect people in their care.

There were not always enough staff available to provide the care and support needs for people in their own homes and we found that people were not always informed if their regular staff could not make the visit to provide their care or if they were going to be late.

Although there were some general risk assessments covering the environment and moving and handling, the welfare and safety of some people who used the agency were at risk because they did not have individualised risk assessments that detailed how the risks could be minimised to protect them and the staff.

Staff had completed training in safeguarding and whistleblowing. They also told us that they undertook the provider’s core training to develop their knowledge and skills so that they provided good care for people and could meet their individual care needs.

We found a number of breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.

Focused inspection of 18 December 2014.

After our inspection of 10 April 2014 the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the breaches in the report.

We undertook this announced focused inspection to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they were now meeting legal requirements. The provider was implementing a new risk assessment document which had been developed in response to the concerns raised. We looked at five care plans, however these had not been amended in response to the concerns raised at our previous visit and did not provide staff with adequate guidance on how to meet peoples care needs. In response to concerns the provider had made the appropriate changes to ensure that people's views were respected regarding the choice of gender of care staff providing their care. There had been improvements made in relation to communication from staff when they were running late, however, this did not happen all the time. The call logs still showed that people were regularly late. The provider had not allowed for travel time between calls which meant that staff continued to be regularly late.