Archived: Care Promise

Updated 10 February 2017

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 legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, and to review a breach of Regulation 12 in relation to assessing risks to health and safety that we found on our visit to the service on 6 September 2016.

This inspection took place on 18 January 2017 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service to people in their own homes. We gave them notice to ensure someone would be at the office at the time of our inspection. This was a focused follow up inspection to look at issues with found on our visit to Care Promise on 6 September 2016.

The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector.

Before the inspection we checked the information that we held about Care Promise. For example we looked at safeguarding notifications and complaints. In the 12 months prior to this inspection no notifications or complaints had been received. Care Promise is a very small service and the registered manager confirmed that there had been no events that should have been reported to the Care Quality Commission.

During the inspection we met with the registered manager. The service only employed two members of care staff, other than the registered manager, and delivered personal care to one person. We spoke to one staff member and the person who used the service. We reviewed fire risk assessments, training records and supervision records in relation to fire safety and quality assurance checks.

We contacted professionals involved in supporting the people who used the service, including a commissioner and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

Updated 10 February 2017

This inspection visit took place on 18 January 2017. This was an unannounced inspection, which meant that the staff and provider did not know that we would be visiting. This was a follow up focussed inspection to look at issues we found on our visit to Care Promise on 6 September 2016.

Care Promise provides personal care to people who wish to remain independent in their own home across the Durham area. The service could be provided to people with a wide range of needs covering; learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, older people, physical disability, sensory impairment or younger adults. At the time of our inspection there was one person using the service.

When we visited the service on the 6 September 2016 we found that the provider could not demonstrate that fire risk assessments had been completed to ensure people’s health and safety.

We issued a requirement notice to the registered manager to send us a report (action plan), within 28 days, to explain how they intended to mitigate the risks in relation to health and safety and fire safety and address the breach of regulations. The registered manager sent this report to us promptly and we were satisfied with how they intended to address the issues we found.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

On this visit we spoke with the registered manager. They explained the checks they carried out to ensure fire risks were considered and reduced. We saw improvements the service had made around fire risk assessments.

During the inspection we also saw improvements had been implemented by the registered manager in recording quality assurance checks, including monitoring fire safety on an on-going basis.