Background to this inspection
Updated
30 March 2022
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
Inspection team
The inspection was completed by four inspectors.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes and people who were receiving care in a hotel while waiting to move home after a stay in hospital. CQC does not regulate premises used for the provision of care in a hotel; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection
The first day of this inspection at one of the hotels where people received care was unannounced. Subsequent visits to the office and other hotels were announced.
Inspection activity started on 26 January 2022 and ended on 1 March 2022. We visited the location’s office on 2 February 2022.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spoke with nine people who used the service, three relatives, the registered manager and 13 care staff. We reviewed a range of records. This included 10 people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at two staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service were reviewed. We received feedback from two clinical commissioning group directors and a community nurse.
Updated
30 March 2022
About the service
Abicare Services Limited – Bradford on Avon is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own home. At the time of our inspection there were 78 people using the homecare service. In addition to providing care in people’s home, the service was providing personal care for people who were staying in six hotels throughout the south west of England. The provision of care in the hotels had been set up by the local clinical commissioning groups (CCG), to support people who were waiting for care packages to be set up before they could move home after being discharged from hospital. This part of the inspection only covered the personal care provided by Abicare, and not the accommodation, which was overseen by the CCG.
Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People felt safe receiving care from staff, either in their own home or in a hotel. The provider had taken action to keep people safe and manage the risks they faced.
Staff had a good understanding of the support people needed. Staff were supporting people to do as much for themselves as possible. People’s needs were set out in clear support plans, which had been reviewed regularly.
People were supported to take any medicines safely and staff sought advice from health and social care services when necessary. The provider had worked with the hospital discharge teams to resolve some initial problems of access to medicines when people left hospital.
The provider had made changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and there were good infection prevention and control measures in place. People told us staff always wore the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) when providing care for them. At one of the hotels where people were receiving care, we observed staff had not always removed facemasks when they had finished providing care for people. Some staff were in communal areas of the building with their facemask under their chin. We raised the issue with the provider who said they would review practice with staff to ensure they followed the infection control procedures.
Staff received regular training and support. People felt staff had the skills and knowledge to meet their needs.
People were supported to access the health services they needed.
The provider had established good systems to monitor the quality of service provided and make improvements where needed. The provider had regular meetings with the clinical commissioning groups to review care being provided in the hotels and respond to any issues raised.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 7 June 2019)
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to infection control. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
The overall rating for the service has remained good, based on the findings of this inspection.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe sections of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Abicare Services Limited – Bradford-on-Avon on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Recommendation
We have made a recommendation about the use of personal protective equipment.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.