The Care Company UK Limited

The Care Company is a domiciliary care agency based in King’s Lynn, providing personal care to people living in their own homes in King’s Lynn and the surrounding areas.

At the time of this inspection, the service was providing care to 124 people and there were 62 staff.

People’s experience of using this service:

People, and their relatives, were complimentary about the way in which care was delivered. They told us staff were caring and happy in their approach to work, the management was approachable and accessible and that they would recommend the service to others.

People usually received care on time and from carers that they had formed trusting relationships with. People were not always given information in advance about who would be visiting them and thought the provision of rotas would improve the service.

The provider had recently expanded the service. They had ensured they had sufficient staff who were well trained and provided high quality and effective care. Staff told us the provider was a considerate employer and staff retention was good.

The provider had fallen behind with some areas of record keeping and governance, such as care plan reviews and medicines administration audits. However, the provider had already employed additional staff to redress these shortfalls within a short timescale.

The provider completed person centred, outcomes-based assessments and was responsive to changes in needs and issues experienced by people using the service. There was not always appropriate attention to detail in aspects of their risk assessments and recording but this was not found to have impacted significantly on people using the service and the provider made plans to redress the concerns found.

Rating at last inspection:

At the last inspection, published in August 2016, the service was rated “Good”.

Why we inspected:

This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received, based on their rating at the last inspection.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people received safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections dates will be planned based on information received and/or our inspection schedule.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

At the time of this inspection care was provided to 103 people who lived at home.

This comprehensive inspection took place on 2 August 2016 and was announced.

The provider is required to have a registered manager as one of their conditions of registration. A registered manager was in post at the time of the inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the agency. 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 kept safe and staff were knowledgeable about reporting any incident of harm. People were looked after by enough staff to support them with their individual needs. Pre-employment checks were completed on staff before they were assessed to be suitable to look after people who used the service. People were supported to take their medicines as prescribed.

People were supported to eat and drink sufficient amounts of food and drink. They were also helped to access health care services and their individual health and nutritional needs were met.

The CQC is required by law to monitor the Mental Capacity Act 2005 [MCA 2005] and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards [DoLS] and to report on what we find. The provider was aware of what they were required to do should any person lack mental capacity. People’s mental capacity was assessed and people were able to make decisions about their day-to-day care. Staff were trained and knowledgeable about the application of the MCA.

People were looked after by staff who were trained and supported to do their job.

People were looked after by kind staff who treated them with respect and dignity. They and their relatives were given opportunities to be involved in the setting up and review of people’s individual care plans.

Care was provided based on people’s individual needs and helped to reduce the risk of social isolation. There was a process in place so that people’s concerns and complaints were listened to and these were acted on.

The registered manager was supported by a team of management staff and care staff. Staff were supported and managed to look after people in a safe way. Staff, people and their relatives were able to make suggestions and actions were taken as a result. Quality monitoring procedures were in place and action was taken where improvements were identified.

People had positive comments about the standard and quality of the support and care provided. This had enabled people who used the service to remain living at home. People's health and wellbeing was maintained and promoted as a result of the support and care that they had received.

There were systems in place to ensure that people were protected from the use of unsafe equipment. People told us that they were satisfied with how they were supported with the use of equipment.

There were sufficient staffing numbers available to ensure that people's support and care needs were met in a timely manner. People had positive comments about staff members, including their competencies and caring attitude. They also told us that the stability of the staff team had provided them, or their relative, with a continuity of support and care.

Quality assurance systems were in place which took into account people's views and comments. In addition, there were quality assurance systems in place to ensure that members of staff were competent and trained to safely do their job. Work was in progress to up-date people's care records.

There were safeguarding procedures in place to protect people from harm. Staff had received training and they were clear about their responsibility in reporting any incidents or allegations of abuse.

There were induction programmes and mandatory training in place to ensure that staff were competent to deliver care. Care staff were supervised to monitor their work performance and development needs.

The agency had a procedure in place to deal with complaints that people might raise and a copy of the complaints procedure was available in their information pack. However, some people told us that communication with the agency's office could be improved as they felt that their concerns had not always been dealt with to their satisfaction.