Background to this inspection
Updated
11 August 2016
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, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection took place on 25 May 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be available to respond to our queries.
The inspection team consisted of one inspector and one expert by experience, who carried out phone calls after the visit to the service. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
On the day of the inspection we visited the agency’s office and spoke with the registered manager, the Chief Operating Officer, a senior support worker plus a number of additional office staff. We spoke to or had email contact with eight members of care staff. We visited a family who used the service and met the staff supporting them. We spoke on the phone to an additional two people and twelve family carers.
We reviewed all the information we had available about the service including notifications sent to us by the manager. Notifications are information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also looked at information sent to us from others, including family members and the local authority. We used this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection.
We looked at four people’s care records and three staff records. We examined information relating to the management of the service such as health and safety records, personnel and recruitment records, quality monitoring audits and information about complaints.
Updated
11 August 2016
Crossroads Care provides family carers with support to enable them to have a break from their caring responsibilities. It does this in a number of ways, including providing care services in carers’ homes to the children, people with disabilities and older adults with support needs which they support. It was this element of the service which we inspected and at the time of our inspection there were approximately 80 people being supported in this way. The service does not provide nursing care.
The inspection took place on 25 April 2016 and was announced. The service met legal requirements at our last inspection in April 2013.
A registered manager was in post at the service. 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.
Staff supported people to remain safe in their homes. People felt safe because they were familiar with the staff supporting them. Risks were assessed and measures put in place to keep people safe. Staff were given enough time to meet people’s needs. The manager was improving communication when care visits were cancelled. Staff worked with families where necessary to support people to take their prescribed medicines safely. The provider had a robust recruitment process in place to protect people from the risk of avoidable harm.
Staff felt well supported. Their skills and knowledge were developed so they could meet the specific needs of the people they were supporting. Staff understood people’s rights to make choices about the service they received.
Staff supported family carers in ensuring people had enough to eat and drink. Staff understood people’s health needs and supported people to have good access to health and social care professionals, when needed.
Staff had enough time to get to know people and their carers and spoke about them with affection. Staff cared about the whole family and were not focused on tasks being carried out. People were spoken to and treated with dignity and respect by staff.
People received support that was personalised. Detailed assessments meant support was tailored to their needs. People and their families were aware of how to make a complaint and there were a number of opportunities available for people to give their feedback about the service.
Staff were enthusiastic and motivated by the ethos of the organisation. The manager was pro-active about developing an open service where the focus was on the people being supported and their carers. There were systems in place to check the quality of the service.