About the service: J.C.Michaels Croydon is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. At the present time it provides a service for 139 mostly older people. Not everyone using the service receives personal care. Care Quality Commission (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.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found:
At the last inspection the service did not have a registered manager in post and had been without a registered manager since October 2016. For this reason, we rated the service as requires improvement. Since the last inspection a manager became registered with the CQC on 15 August 2018.
The service was well led by the registered manager who was keen to employ innovative ways of working to develop the service. There were effective systems in place to monitor the quality of the service provided to people which ensured good governance.
People and their relatives told us they felt safe with the care and support they received from staff.
Comprehensive risk assessments and risk management strategies were in place as part of the assessment and support planning process. This meant risks to people and to staff were minimised.
People were protected from the risk of abuse. The service had safeguarding procedures in place that staff were well aware of.
Staff received training on safeguarding people.
People received their medicines safely and as prescribed.
There were robust recruitment practices in place and sufficient staff levels to meet people’s needs.
Accidents, incidents and risks were appropriately recorded and included strategies to reduce the likelihood of events re-occurring in the future.
People's nutritional needs were met and where people required support with nutrition, care plans provided staff with guidance on people's support needs.
Services were delivered in line with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and staff sought consent prior to providing care and offered people choices to encourage people to make their own decisions.
People were supported to have healthier lives. Staff assisted them to access health professionals when needed to ensure their health and well-being was monitored.
People told us they benefitted from caring relationships with the staff.
People were treated as individuals by staff committed to respecting people's individual preferences.
The provider had systems in place to ensure concerns and complaints were responded to in an appropriate way.
The service had systems in place to notify the appropriate authorities where concerns were identified. The culture of the service was positive, open and person centred.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update:
The last rating for this service was good overall with a rating of requires improvement for the well-led domain (published 15 June 2017). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
Why we inspected:
This was a planned inspection in line with our inspection schedule. We found the service met the characteristics of a "Good" rating in all areas.
Follow up:
We will 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.