Archived: Consummate Care Limited - Kettering

Updated 18 March 2016

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.

This inspection took place over two days on 2 & 3 February 2016 and was announced and was undertaken by two inspectors. The provider was given 24 hours’ notice of the inspection as we needed to be sure that when we inspected the manager was in the agency office. We do this because in some community based domiciliary care agencies the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or, in some smaller agencies, providing care.

Before our inspection, we reviewed information we held about the provider including, for example, statutory notifications that they had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We contacted the health and social care commissioners who help place and monitor the care of people using the service that have information about the quality of the service.

During this inspection we visited the agency office. We met and spoke with eleven care staff, the registered manager and deputy manager. We reviewed the care records of four people who used the service. We looked at seven records in relation to staff recruitment and training, as well as records related to the quality monitoring of the service.

We took into account people’s experience of receiving care by listening to what they had to say.

We visited three households with people’s prior agreement. With people’s permission, we looked at the care records maintained by the care staff that were kept in people’s own homes. We also telephoned the relatives of two people to ask them about their family member’s experience of using the service.

We also looked at other information related to the running of and the quality of the service. This included quality assurance audits, training information for care staff, and the arrangements for managing complaints.

Updated 18 March 2016

This inspection took place on the 02 and 03 February 2016 and was announced. The service is registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes or shared accommodation when they are unable to manage their own care. At the time of the inspection there were twelve people using the service.

There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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 told us that they felt safe in their own home and we observed people to be happy and relaxed around the staff that supported them. All staff had completed the provider’s mandatory training. Staffing levels ensured that people received the support they required at the times they needed. We observed that there was sufficient staff to meet the needs of the people they were supporting. The recruitment practice protected people from being cared for by staff that were unsuitable to work in their home.

Support plans contained risk assessments to protect people from identified risks and help to keep them safe. They gave information for staff on the identified risk and informed staff on the measures to take to minimise any risks.

People were supported to take their medicines as prescribed. Records showed that medicines were obtained, stored, administered and disposed of safely. People were supported to maintain good health and had access to healthcare services when needed.

People were actively involved in decisions about their care and support needs There were formal systems in place to assess people’s capacity for decision making under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Care plans were in place detailing how people wished to be supported and people were involved in making decisions about their support. People participated in a range of activities both in their own home and in the community and received the support they needed to help them do this. People were able to choose where they spent their time and what they did.

Staff had good relationships with the people they supported. Complaints were appropriately investigated and action was taken to make improvements to the service when this was found to be necessary. The management was approachable and had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service provided. Staff and people were confident that issues would be addressed and that any concerns they had would be listened to.