Updated 3 November 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.
This inspection took place on 21 September 2016 and was announced. We told the provider that we were going to visit 48 hours before our inspection. This was because the service provided domiciliary care and we wanted to ensure that the manager and staff would be available to talk with us about the service. One inspector carried out this inspection.
As part of our inspection we looked at the information we held about the service. This included notifications received from the provider about accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts which they are required to send us by law. We reviewed regular quality reports sent to us by the local authority that purchases the care on behalf of people, to see what information they held about the service. These are reports that tell us if the local authority has concerns about the service.
The provider also completed a Provider Information Return (PIR) before our inspection. 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. We used this information to plan our inspection and ensure that any areas of concern were looked at. We contacted the local authority and asked for their views. We also reviewed regular quality reports sent to us by the local authority that purchases the care on behalf of people, to see what information they held about the service. These are reports that tell us if the local authority has concerns about the service they purchase.
We spoke with nine people and one relative who used the service by telephone. We visited the services offices and spoke with the registered manager, regional manager and five staff including a senior carer.
We looked at a variety of documents which included four people's care plans, four staff recruitment files, staff training records and other records relating to the management of the service including complaints and audits carried out to monitor quality and safety.