Archived: Gemini Xtra Care

Updated 6 January 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 unannounced inspection was carried out by an inspector and took place over two days on 12 and13 November 2015.

With domiciliary care agencies we can give the provider a short period of notice of an inspection. We sometimes do this because in some community based domiciliary care agencies, and in particular small agencies the registered manager is often out of the office supporting staff or, in this case, providing care. On this occasion the initial inspection visit to the agency office was announced and the registered manager made arrangements to be present at the agency office for the inspection to continue.

Before our inspection, we reviewed information we held about the provider including, for example, statutory notifications that they had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.

During this inspection we initially visited the agency office. We met and spoke with two staff, including the registered manager. We reviewed the care records of all eight people who used the service. We looked at three records in relation to staff recruitment and training, as well as records related to the quality monitoring of the service.

We took into account people’s experience of receiving care by listening to what they had to say.

We visited three households with people’s prior agreement. With people’s permission, we looked at the care records maintained by the staff that were kept in people’s own homes. We also spoke with two people over the telephone to ask them about their experience of using the service.

Updated 6 January 2016

This announced domiciliary care inspection took place over two days on 12 and13 November 2015.

Gemini Xtra Care is a family run domiciliary care agency that currently provides care and support to a very small number of older people that live at home in Northampton.

A registered manager was in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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.

People were supported in their own homes by staff that were able to meet people’s needs safely. There were sufficient numbers of staff employed to meet people’s assessed needs. Some improvements were needed, however, regarding the registered manager ensuring that records held at the office relating to staff recruitment and quality assurance were consistently fit for purpose. For example, some staff files were missing an application form, and staff supervision records had not always been kept. The registered manager had not always documented the ‘spot checks’ they verbally confirmed they had done to check that staff were doing their job effectively. Although there were copies of training staff had undertaken there was an incomplete training ‘overview’ record maintained or readily available in the office. The registered manager was making these improvements when we inspected but work was still to be done.

People felt safe receiving care and support from the agency staff scheduled to provide their service. The registered manager and staff understood the need to protect people from harm and abuse and knew what action they should take if they had any concerns. Staffing levels ensured that people received the support they required at the times they needed.

People’s care plans reflected their needs and choices about how they preferred their care and support to be provided. People were encouraged to be involved in the development and review of their care plan.

People were treated with dignity and their right to make choices about how they preferred their care to be provided was respected. Staff were caring, friendly, and responsive to people’s changing needs.

People received support from staff that were able to demonstrate that they understood what was required of them to provide people with the care they needed. People had been kept informed in a timely way whenever staff were unavoidably delayed, or when another staff had to be substituted at short notice.

People’s rights were protected. People knew how to raise concerns and complaints with the registered manager and were encouraged to do so if they were unhappy with any aspect of the service they received. The quality of the service provided was regularly reviewed by a registered manager that was very much ‘hands on’ with regard to the day-to-day provision of care.