Last updated 1 February 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 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 was a comprehensive inspection. The inspection took place on 17December 2018 and was announced. We gave the service 48 hours notice of the inspection visit because the location provides a domiciliary care service. We needed to ensure the registered manager would be available during our inspection to enable us to look at records they are required to maintain. We also wanted to give them enough time to seek agreement with people using the service to allow us to visit them in their homes and telephone some people.

The inspection was carried out by two adult social care inspectors. An expert by experience also telephoned five people using the service and five relatives during the week of the inspection. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also looked at information we had received about the service since the last inspection, such as notifications about significant incidents, and information from people who use the service, staff, relatives and other professionals.

Before the inspection we sent out questionnaires to people who used the service, relatives and staff and their responses helped us to reach our judgements about the service. We also received a response from a community health professional.

We visited the agency office where we met with the registered manager, the DCA manager, training manager and four care workers. We looked at three recruitment files, staff training records, staff supervision and monitoring records, staff weekly rotas and four individual’s care plans. We also visited two people in their supported living home.