Updated 17 April 2019
The inspection:
• We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
• This inspection was carried out by 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. The expert for this inspection has personal experience of caring for an older person living with dementia who used regulated services.
Service and service type:
• Sisterly Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults, including people living with dementia, younger adults, people with a sensory impairment and a physical disability. Not everyone using Sisterly Care received the regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.
• The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
• We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection to make sure the manager and people we needed to speak with would be available.
• Inspection site visit activity started on 20 March 2019 and ended on 27 March 2019. We visited the office location on 27 March 2019 to see the registered manager and staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
• Prior to the inspection we reviewed the action plan the provider had submitted about the actions they had taken because of the requires improvement rating at last inspection. We reviewed any notifications we had received from the service. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law. We looked at the Provider Information Return (PIR). Providers are required to send us key information about their service what they do well, and improvements they plan to make.
During the inspection we spoke with 9 people and 3 relatives, the registered manager, the nominated individual and 3 care workers.
We looked at the following records;
• Five people’s care records and Medicine Administration Records (MAR)
• Records of accidents, incidents and complaints
• Audits and quality assurance reports,
• Three staff recruitment records.
• We looked at the provider’s training matrix, supervision, appraisal and spot check matrix.
• Policies and procedures including; Safeguarding, recruitment, end of life care, and the mental Capacity Act (2005).
Following the inspection, we asked the registered manager for further information regarding the recruitment of staff and we received this.