Last updated 22 November 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 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.

The last inspection was on 18 December 2013 where no concerns were raised.

This inspection took place on 16 September 2016 and was announced. We told the nominated individual for the organisation 48 hours before our inspection that we would be coming. This was because we wanted to make sure that appropriate staff were available to speak with us on the day of our inspection. Two inspectors undertook the inspection, with an expert-by-experience, who had experience of care services. 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 by experience helped us with the telephone calls to get feedback from people being supported.

Before the inspection, we reviewed information we held about the service. This included previous inspection reports, any complaints and notifications. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. This helped us with the planning of the inspection. We contacted the local authority to ask them about their experiences of the service provided and the Clinical Commissioning Team (CCG). We contacted 17 people using the service and nine relatives over the telephone. We received feedback from a healthcare professional.

During the inspection we visited to the service’s office and spoke with the nominated individual for the organisation, the care supervisor, the office manager, two senior care coordinators, and a care coordinator. We spent time reviewing the records of the service, including policies and procedures, 10 people’s care and support plans, the recruitment records for six new care staff, complaints recording, accident/incident and safeguarding records. We also looked at the provider’s quality assurance audits and service development plans.