23 February 2014
During a routine inspection
This inspection took place on 23 February 2015 and was announced. The registered provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides personal care and support to children and their families; we needed to be sure that someone would be in.
We last inspected this service in January 2014. At the time of our last inspection the service was meeting our regulatory standards.
The Rainbow Trust is a national organisation providing services to children and their families across the UK. Rainbow Trust 1 in County Durham offers services to children and families where children have life threatening or terminal conditions. The services works with families in hospitals, in their own homes and in the community. They provide care and support direct to the child or young person affected by a life threatening or terminal conditions, their siblings or their adult parents or carers.
The service is registered with the CQC to provide personal care to children and young people in their homes. At the time of our inspection there were 81 children receiving a service, 23 of whom required personal care. Parent’s comments on the personal care service they have received in their own home and in the community have been included in this report.
The service had a registered manager in post. 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.
We found every child and young person had a personalised care plan and risk assessment in place. Staff were aware of risks and worked on a multi-agency basis to minimise those risks.
We found regular quality monitoring of the service had been undertaken. We saw each section of the service e.g. a siblings group or a parent support group had a service form which described the nature of the service and the service outcomes. Children and their parents were asked to contribute to the evaluation of the service.
We found the registered manager had mapped where staff lived and had considered the distances to maximise the hours staff could spend with families.
We found the registered provider worked within the principles outlined in the Common Assessment Framework to make plans and decisions involving the child or young person and in their best interests.
We found the registered provider involved children and young people and worked within the UN Convention on Children’s Rights.
The registered provider had put in place a ‘Tribute Day’ and invited families along who had lost a child through illness or disability. People had been asked for their feedback to improve the day.
Professionals who referred to the service told us the service was very responsive to families and provided a flexible service to meet individual family’s needs.
We also found Rainbow Trust 1 adhered to the NICE quality standard QS55 ‘Children and young people with cancer, and their families and carers, have their psychological and social needs assessed at different stages during and after their treatment'.