Nightingales Home Care

Updated 26 July 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.

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the registered provider is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

The announced comprehensive inspection started on 17 July 2018 and ended on 18 July 2018. The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector.

We visited the office location on 18 July 2018 to meet with the registered provider and the care manager and to review care records and policies and procedures. Prior to the visit to the agency office, we spoke with three people using the service; two care staff and the care manager over the telephone.

We reviewed a range of records about people’s care and the way the service was managed. These included the care records for four people, medicine administration records, staff training records, staff supervision and appraisal records, minutes from meetings, quality assurance audits, incident and accident reports, complaints and compliments records and records relating to the management of the service. We also looked at the results from the most recent customer and staff satisfaction survey.

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.

In preparation for our visit, we contacted the local authority contracting unit for feedback and we checked the information we held about the service and the provider. The inspection was informed by feedback from questionnaires sent from us to six people using the service and six relatives; we received six completed questionnaires from people using the service. One questionnaire was returned from community professional staff.

Updated 26 July 2018

We inspected Nightingales Home Care on 17 and 18 July 2018.

Nightingales Home Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. At the time of our inspection the agency was providing personal care to seven people.

The last inspection was carried out on 8 and 9 March 2016. Whilst we rated the service as overall “Good”, we found there were shortfalls in the recruitment of new staff. During this inspection, we found the necessary improvements had been made and the service was meeting all the current regulations.

At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of Good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

People were happy with the care and support they received and made positive comments about the staff. They told us they felt safe and staff were caring. People had developed positive trusting relationships with staff. Staff understood how to protect people from abuse.

The information in people's support plans was sufficiently detailed and risks to their health and safety had been identified and managed safely. People's care and support was kept under review and they were involved in decisions about their care. Staff worked in partnership with relevant health and social care professionals when people's needs changed.

A safe and robust recruitment procedure had been developed since our last inspection. The management team were aware of the process to be followed to ensure new staff were suitable. Arrangements were in place to make sure staff were trained and competent. People considered there were enough staff to provide them with a reliable, flexible and consistent service.

People had choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Staff respected people's diversity and promoted people's right to be free from discrimination; people's dignity and privacy was respected.

People's nutritional needs were monitored as necessary and staff knew their likes and dislikes. People told us they were happy and did not have any complaints but were confident they would be listened to. Staff administering medicines had received training and supervision to do this safely.

There were effective systems for assessing, monitoring and developing the quality of the service being provided to people. People and staff were consulted and their views were acted upon.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.