Updated 9 February 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 10 November 2015 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service we needed to be sure that someone would be available. The inspection team consisted of 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. The Expert by Experience carried out telephone interviews with people who used the service, their relatives and members of staff.
On the day of the inspection we visited the agency’s office and spoke with the Area Manager and the trainee manager. We met with two members of care staff and a member of staff who carried out quality monitoring visits with people who used the service. We visited the home of a person who used the service and spoke with nine people, two relatives and two staff members on the phone.
We reviewed all the information we had available about the service including notifications sent to us by the manager. This is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also looked at information sent to us from others, including family members and the local authority. We used this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection.
We looked at four people’s care records and examined information relating to the management of the service such as health and safety records, personnel and recruitment records, quality monitoring audits and information about complaints.