Care South Home Care Services Dorset

Updated 5 March 2019

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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.

This inspection took place on 21 November 2018 and ended on 4 December 2018. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit. We needed to be sure that people were informed that we would be contacting them by telephone, and we needed a manager to be available to facilitate this inspection.

We visited the office location on 21 November 2018 to see the registered manager and staff. We reviewed people's care records, policies and procedures, records relating to the management of the service, training records and the recruitment records of care workers. The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their area of expertise was with older people. The expert by experience spoke with 14 people, one relative and two staff by telephone on the 16 and 19 November 2018.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

We looked at information we held about the service including notifications they had made to us about important events. We also reviewed all other information sent to us from other stakeholders for example the local authority and members of the public. We spoke with two staff during our visit.

We requested further information from the registered manager related to the service, this was provided promptly.

Updated 5 March 2019

What life is like for people using this service:

• People told us they felt safe. Comments received included; “Yes most definitely,” and one person described how they “Feel very comfortable with them [staff] in my house.”

• People's needs and risks had been assessed and care and support was delivered as they expected and needed.

• Staff cared about the well being of people they supported and we received positive feedback from relatives and people about the kindness of staff. One relative told us “The whole team are fantastic,”

• Staff were compassionate towards the people they provided support to. There were many examples of staff providing care to people when it was their day or weekend off. Staff were praised for their “Reliability and kindness.”

• People and their relatives knew how to make a complaint if they needed to and felt any concerns would be taken seriously and promptly.

• The service actively promotes assistive technology to help people to remain independent and safe.

• There were quality assurance systems in place to drive improvement.

• More information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: GOOD (The date last report published was 6 June 2016).

About the service: Care South Home Care Services Dorset provides support and personal care to people who live in their own homes in the Bournemouth and Christchurch area. At the time of our inspection they were providing personal care to 63 people.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection. The service remains Good.

Going forward we will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our inspection schedule for those services rated as Good.