Last updated 16 March 2018
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.

The inspection took place on 19 and 20 December 2017. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in. The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert by experience undertook telephone interviews on 20 December 2017.

Before our inspection visit we reviewed the information we held about the service including notifications the provider sent us. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. For example, incidents resulting in serious injuries, or allegations of abuse. We sought the views of the local authority commissioning teams. Commissioners are people who work to find appropriate care and support services which are paid for by the local authority or by a health clinical commissioning group. The inspection was also informed by feedback from questionnaires completed by a number of people using services.

We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection we spoke with ten people who used the service and five relatives. We also visited three people in their own homes, with their consent. We did this so we could see how staff provided care to people in their own homes. We spoke with six care staff , the care manager and registered manager. We looked at a range of records related to how the service was managed. These included three people’s care records, two other people’s care reviews, two staff recruitment and training files, and the provider’s quality auditing system.