Updated 29 May 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type:
Ambassador HomeCare is a domiciliary care service. It is registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes in the community, including older people and people living with dementia.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are 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 a short period of notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager was often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in. We also needed to arrange to speak to people who used the service and their relatives as part of this inspection and to the staff that supported people.
Our inspection activity started on 9 May 2019 and ended on 13 May 2019. As part of this process, we visited the office location on 13 May 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records, policies and procedures.
What we did:
In planning our inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included any notifications (events which happened in the service that the provider is required to tell us about).
The registered provider had completed a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
We also made contact with Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.
During our inspection we spoke with six people and three relatives by telephone to ask about their experience of the care provided. During our visit to the registered providers office we met with one person, so they could talk about their experiences of care direct. We also spoke with the registered providers nominated individual, the registered manager, two deputy managers, five of the care staff team, the office administrator, and an external health care professional who had worked with the service.
We reviewed a range of written records including specific parts of seven people’s care records, two staff recruitment files and information relating to the administration of medicines and the registered providers auditing and monitoring of service provision.