Background to this inspection
Updated
3 June 2015
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 and to look at the overall quality of the service.
When OOA Care Limited was last inspected in July 2014 we found breaches of the legal requirements in relation to the care and welfare of people who use services, assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision and complaints. The provider wrote to us in October 2014 to tell us how they would achieve compliance with the regulations. During this inspection, we found that the service was still not meeting all of the legal requirements.
Before our inspection of 24 and 31 March 2015 we reviewed the information that we had about the service including statutory notifications. Notifications are information about specific important events the service is legally required to send to us. We also contacted the local authority and they provided us with information they held about the service.
This inspection was carried out by two inspectors. On the days of the inspection we spoke with two people employed by the service. This did not include the registered manager who was unavailable for both inspection days.
We looked at records relating to peoples personal care and the management of the service such as the policies, incident and accident records, staff recruitment, staff supervision, and quality assurance reports.
Updated
3 June 2015
OOA Care Limited (Out and About and Away) is a small agency providing personal care to a small number of people in their own homes in Bristol. They support both adults and children with a variety of social and personal care needs.
This inspection was carried out on 24 and 31 March 2015. The first day was unannounced as we had received concerns about the management of the service. The second day was announced as we needed to ensure that staff were available in the office.
We inspected OOA Care Limited in February 2014 and during this inspection we found a number of breaches regulations relating to the following issues:-
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Records
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Supporting workers
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Assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision
Following our inspection in February 2014, we used our enforcement powers to place a condition on the provider to prevent any new care packages for people being undertaken without the agreement of the Commission.
OOA Care Limited was inspected again in July 2014. We found that although some improvements had been made to the service, sufficient improvements to ensure the care and welfare of people who used the service had not been made. There were also further and continued breaches of regulations at that time relating to the following issues:-
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Care and welfare of people who use services
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Assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision
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Complaints
This inspection does not carry a rating; a rating can only be applied to an inspection following a previously rated comprehensive inspection. The last comprehensive inspection of this service took place before the new approach methodology of inspecting and applying ratings. This service will therefore receive a rating at their next comprehensive inspection.
You can read the report from our last full inspection under the previous inspection methodology, by selecting the 'all reports' link for OOA Care Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
A registered manager was in post at the time of 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
The provider had not made appropriate arrangements to identify and respond to allegations of abuse. Staff were not aware of the provider’s safeguarding policy and how to respond to actual or suspected abuse to keep people safe. The provider had also failed to act appropriately in reporting potential abuse to the local authority safeguarding team.
When a risk to people was identified, the provider had not undertaken a risk assessment process to mitigate any foreseeable risk.
The provider did not operate safe and effective recruitment procedures to ensure only suitable staff were employed at the service.
The provider did not systematically monitor the quality of the service provision and care or have effective systems in place to obtain the views of people who used the service.
Staff appraisals and supervisions were not undertaken as planned and the service failed to monitor and feedback on staff performance.
We saw that appropriate action was not taken in response to unsafe incidents, including steps to reduce the risk of their reoccurring.
The provider did not have a system to monitor records made by staff or records that related to the management of the service. Records were not kept securely.
We found multiple breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.