Background to this inspection
Updated
11 April 2017
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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 14, 15 and 16 February 2017 and was announced. The inspection was carried out by one inspector. The provider was given a week’s notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we asked the provider to organise for us to be able to shadow a member of staff on some calls.
This inspection used the standard CQC assessment and ratings framework for community adult social care services, but included testing some new and improved methods for inspecting adult social care community services. The new and improved methods are designed to involve people more in the inspection, and to better reflect their experiences of the service.
When planning our inspection we looked at the information we held about the service including any notifications received from the provider about deaths, accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts which they are required to send us by law.
The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form that asks the provider to offer some key information about the service they provide to assist with the inspection. We also considered information shared with by Commissioners of the service.
As part of our inspection we sent out questionnaires to some staff and some people that were using the service. We took the responses to the questionnaires into consideration when planning our inspection. We visited four people in their homes with a member of staff that provided support to them to observe interactions. We spoke with two relatives during the home visits. We spoke with six people that received a service and one relative by telephone to get their views about the service they received. We looked at the care files of three people, time sheets and complaints to check people received their care as planned. We spoke with three staff individually and three staff in a group. We also looked at two staff files to check the recruitment process and support that staff received to carry out their roles through supervision and training.
Updated
11 April 2017
This inspection took place on 14,15 and16 February 2017 and was announced. We gave the provider a weeks’ notice so that they could help us to arrange to visit some people in their homes.
We had previously inspected the service on 6 July 2015. We rated the service as good overall with no breaches of regulations. However the service required improvements in the auditing of medication records. At this inspection we found that improvements had been made.
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. It provides a service to older adults. At the time of our inspection 110 people were receiving a service.
There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. 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.
There were some systems in place to gather the views of people and to monitor the quality of the service. However, some of the systems used to monitor the quality of the service were not sufficient to identify shortfalls and to take the actions when improvements were required. Staff did not always feel well supported.
People were safe because staff had received training and understood the different types of abuse and knew what actions they should take if they thought that someone was at risk of harm. Staff were knowledgeable about the actions to take in the event of emergencies and about how the risks to people in respect of their care should be managed.
People received a safe service because staff were trained and followed the procedures to ensure the risk of harm and abuse to people was reduced. Risks that were associated with people’s care were assessed and managed appropriately because staff had the information to support people safely. Where people received support from staff with taking prescribed medicines, this was done in a way that ensured people were supported with their medication safely.
People received care and support from staff that were trained to be effective in their role. People’s rights were protected and they had choices in their daily lives. People were supported to maintain their diet and health needs where required. Staff were caring and people’s privacy, dignity independence and individuality was respected and promoted by staff and the management.
People received care from staff that were suitably recruited in sufficient numbers to ensure people’s needs were met. This was because the provider had undertaken the relevant checks to ensure the staff they employed were suitable to work with people. There were sufficient numbers of safely recruited staff to provide people with regular staff to support them.
People told us that they felt supported by the registered manager and felt able to speak with him if they needed to. People had no complaints about the service but felt they could raise any complaints with the registered manager. The registered manager worked with other agencies to ensure that people's needs were met.