Audley Care - Audley Care Willicombe Park

Updated 14 January 2020

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

This inspection was undertaken by one inspector and an expert by experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. However, they were absent from the role during our inspection and an acting manager was in place. This means that the provider is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service two days’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or acting manager would be available to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 25 November 2019 and ended on 26 November 2019. This included visiting the office to speak with the acting manager, interviewing staff and reviewing care records, policies and procedures.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection as well as the last inspection report. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the acting manager, the regional support manager, four care staff and spoke to three people and one relative on the Willicombe Park site. The expert by experience spoke to a further five people who use the service, and two relatives by telephone. We looked at five people’s care records including their medicine records. We looked at training records for the staff team and we examined three staff members’ recruitment and supervision records. We viewed documents relating to the management of the service such as complaints and compliments, satisfaction surveys and quality audits.

Updated 14 January 2020

About the service

Audley Care Ltd provides care and support for people in their own homes living within the retirement village at Willicombe Park and to people living within the local community. The registered office is situated in a retirement village in Tunbridge Wells. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of this inspection the service was providing personal care to 52 people.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

All people and their relatives said staff were kind and caring.

Known risks to people had been assessed, with detailed guidance for staff to minimise them. Medicines were safely managed as was the risk of the spread of infection. People felt safe with staff who knew how to recognise possible abuse and how to report it. Rotas showed there were enough staff deployed to meet people’s needs and staff had been recruited safely by the provider.

Staff received a wide range of training and could access more specialised courses if required. They identified changes in people’s health or well-being and referred people appropriately to professionals for advice and treatment.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Care planning was person-centred and showed that people’s individual preference and needs had been fully considered. People knew how to make a complaint if they wished and there was an established process in place to manage any concerns.

Staff and people, we spoke with praised the acting manager for their open-door policy and responsiveness. Internal audits were regularly carried out to identify any areas which needed improvement. People and staff were able to voice their views through a number of different methods.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good on the 10 January 2017(Published 16 February 2017.)

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider and continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.