Archived: Mid Cornwall

The agency provided 942.5 hours of personal care services and employed 47 care workers. We looked at the care records for six people. We visited those people in their homes and spoke with five relatives. We spoke with five care workers, the agency's office staff, and the registered manager, Mrs Karon Gunter.

People who used the service told us that their care workers were always pleasant, friendly, reliable, and respected their privacy and dignity. Care workers were described as "very polite", "respectful" and "good as gold". People told us [the care workers] "do anything for me", "timekeeping fairly good if late they will call me" and "majority are brilliant some are really into their jobs".

People told us they were involved in an assessment of their individual needs and the plan of how those needs were to be met. Care plans and records were reviewed and updated. People told us the care workers were very good at their work.

The care workers told us that the support from the management team enabled them to do their work well. We found training was being rolled out to all staff to ensure they were up to date. We also found "spot checks" took place and one to one supervisions were being set up.

Oasis Community Care relocated its office to Bodmin in June 2013. At the time of this inspection the address of the office in St Austell was still registered as a location with the Care Quality Commission and therefore is the provider's location address on this report.

We found care plans held comprehensive instructions for practical tasks. For people with memory loss or confusion however, there was no instruction about how to provide their care and manage their behaviour. This meant staff did not know what signs to look for, or how to respond at an early stage to intervene and prevent behaviours happening or recurring.

We found people using this service were not protected from the risk of abuse because staff did not know how to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent it from happening. The manager did not know how to take appropriate action when possible abuse was identified.

We found the agency's recruitment procedures were inconsistent, and staff had not received training and supervision relevant to the work they were undertaking.

We found there were no systems to assess and monitor the service that people received, or to identify, assess and manage risks to people's health, safety and welfare.

We found that important events affecting people's welfare, health and safety were not reported to the Care Quality Commission so that, where needed, action could be taken.