All inspections: The Norman Laud Association Domiciliary Service

We gave short notice of our inspection. We did this to enable us to check on the care and welfare of people. At the time of our inspection the service was providing care and support to four children in their family homes. The children were unable to tell us their experiences of using the service verbally so we spoke with three of their parents. We also spoke with the manager and two members of staff. We looked at four sets of care records.

We found that people were asked to give their consent before support was given. This meant that staff acted in accordance with people's wishes to ensure that people received care and support the way they like.

We saw that care and support was mostly planned in a way that was intended to ensure people's safety and welfare. One relative told us, "I'm pleased with the care, it's brilliant." Another relative said, 'We are very happy with the care and staff, we can't ask for more.'

We saw that the provider had robust recruitment systems in place so that only staff suitable to work with vulnerable people were employed.

We found that people were asked for their views about the care and people were listened to. However, the provider did not have an effective system in place to ensure the quality of service provision.

We saw that there were gaps in people's care records which meant that information was not accurate and did not fully reflect people's care needs. This meant that people's care records were not fit for purpose.

The Norman Laud domiciliary care services offers personal care to children and young adults in their own homes. The provider also ran other registered services and was only in the early stages of developing this service.

When we inspected there were only a few people using the service. We met with the manager and we spoke with one relatives and one staff member.

There were systems in place for caring for people in their own home and staff we spoke with knew how to support people and how to meet their needs.

Robust systems were in place to safeguard people from the risk of harm and staff were confident that they would report any concerns.

There were systems in place to make sure that people could be assured that their care and support was reviewed and monitored.

When we visited the service on 13 February 2012 we met the registered manager. She told us that no one was using the service at that time. We saw from records that a service was last provided to a person in September 2010. The service was not employing any care workers at the time of our visit.

We looked at the systems that were in place for providing a service. We saw that there were written policies and procedures for caring for people in their own homes. These included training workers in the skills required to address people's assessed individual needs and manage risk.

We saw policy and procedure documents for the safe recruitment of staff and the protection of children and young people from risk of abuse. All of the service policies had been regularly reviewed up to 2010. The service had a statement of purpose and the manager was registered with us.

We looked at the records of the last two people who used the service. We saw that they contained all of the necessary documents, information and processes to safely provide a service that met their individual needs and promote their rights.

The manager told us that the provider organisation, that also ran other registered services, will be reviewing this service in April 2012 and will make a decision about whether to continue to offer it.

We have written to the provider organisation and asked it to tell us what it intends for the future of this service.

Archived: The Norman Laud Association Domiciliary Service

All Inspections

12, 13 February 2014

During a routine inspection

11 December 2012

During a routine inspection

13 February 2012

During a routine inspection