Archived: Sevacare - Lewisham

Updated 24 November 2015

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.

The inspection took place on 27 August and 3 September 2015 and we gave the manager two days’ notice of the inspection. The manager was given notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in the office to assist us with the inspection.

One inspector carried out the inspection.

Before the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service including records of notifications sent to us. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

We spoke with six people who use the service and with one relative. We spoke with the registered manager and with six care staff, care co-ordinators and the care service area manager. We looked at five care records and two staff records. We looked at other records relating to the management, leadership and monitoring of the service. These included training records, complaints records, audit reports and staff meeting minutes.

We contacted five local authority contract monitoring officers to ask for their opinions of the service and received four responses to our requests.

Updated 24 November 2015

Sevacare (UK) Limited is a national provider of care and support services to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, Sevacare Lewisham provided care to 146 people who lived in the London boroughs of Lewisham, Lambeth, Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley.

The service was last inspected on 12 and 21 January 2015. At that inspection we found five breaches of regulations which related to person centred care, safe care and treatment, staffing, good governance and notification of incidents to CQC.

We asked for improvements to be made in these areas. The provider sent us an improvement plan. You can read the report of this inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for this service on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

At this inspection, we found that the provider had taken action to address the breaches of regulations found. People were receiving visits on time and so their care needs were met as arranged. Care workers received support, training and information to enable them to care properly for people. Management systems to check the quality of care people received had improved. The CQC was informed about incidents as required by regulation.

The service has a registered manager. 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 felt safe and trusted their care workers who were trained and knowledgeable about what to do if they were concerned someone was being harmed.

People received care from staff that had information about their health conditions and knew the actions to take to help them. When appropriate there was contact between care staff and health professionals to ensure important information was passed on to meet people’s health needs.

There were policies and procedures in place about the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and care workers had been trained in its principles. They asked people for consent before providing care.

People found staff caring and helpful. Care workers understood the issues of privacy and dignity and put them into practice when working with people.

People’s views were taken into account when planning care and matching them with care workers who could meet their diverse needs. However their preferences and needs were not always considered in relation to communication with them.

Management systems had improved and there was better monitoring of the quality of care provided to people.

People’s messages and requests were not always responded to by office based staff. At this inspection there were two breaches of regulation. Medicines administration records contained errors which increased the risk that people may not receive their medicines as prescribed. Communication with people did not take into account their preferences and needs.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.