Archived: Caring Alternatives Gibfield Office

Updated 29 June 2015

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.

We undertook an announced focused inspection of Caring Alternatives Gibfield Office on 08 May 2015. This inspection was undertaken to ensure that improvements to meet legal requirements that had been planned by the provider after our inspection on the 21 July had been made. We inspected the service against one of the five questions we ask about services: is the service effective? This is because the service was not meeting some legal requirements.

The inspection was undertaken by one adult social care inspector. Before the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service including details of any incidents, including safeguarding incidents notified to us by the provider. We reviewed the action plan the provider sent us following our previous inspection and checked this had been implemented.

During the inspection we spoke with two people who received support from the service. We also spoke with five staff members including two support workers, one team leader, the operational manager and the registered manager. We looked at three people’s care files and three people’s daily diaries, which contained daily notes and an appointment tracking form.

Updated 29 June 2015

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 21 and 23 July 2014 and 11 August 2014. A breach of legal requirements was found. After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to a breach of regulation 24 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 in relation to supporting people to access appropriate health and social care support.

We undertook this focused inspection to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Caring Alternatives Gibfield Office on our website at www.cqc.org.uk .

This inspection took place on 8 May 2015 and was announced. We found the provider had made improvements and was now meeting requirements in relation to the breach we found.

Caring Alternatives Gibfield Office is a supported living service that provides support to adults with mental ill health within their own homes. People had tenancies at three premises in Wigan and there were further premises in Ellesmere Port, Bolton and Northwich.

There was a registered manager in position at the time of our visit. 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 saw the service had introduced a tracking form where healthcare appointments attended and booked were recorded at the front of people’s daily notes. This would help ensure staff would be aware when people required support to book, follow-up or attend appointments, if such support was required. Some improvements were required to ensure this recording was completed consistently and accurately. One entry had not been fully completed, and another entry did not detail reasons for a person’s admission into hospital. This had not had an adverse impact on the person these records related to.

People were receiving support from a range of professional and community services to support their mental and physical health. The service had identified people’s healthcare needs in conjunction with other professionals and had arranged for appropriate support to be put in place for people. Staff were aware of the support people required to make and attend healthcare appointments and this was consistent with details in people’s care plans. People we spoke with who were supported by the service told us they received the support they required to make and attend appointments.