Updated 25 July 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection team was made up of one inspector and an expert by experience. 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 for this inspection has personal experience of caring for an older person living with dementia.
Service and service type: AQS Homecare is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults and younger adults including people living with dementia, a sensory impairment and a physical disability.
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:
This was an announced inspection as we needed to obtain consent from people to be contacted by our expert by experience. We also had to be sure someone would be at the office when we visited.
What we did:
Before the inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must let us know about, such as abuse; and we sought feedback from the local authority and other professionals involved with the service. We assessed the information that providers send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
On 7th and 8th May 2019 we contacted 16 people and six relatives by telephone to ask for their feedback on the service. On 10th May 2019 we visited the office and met with the registered manager. We looked at records relating to the service including five people’s care plans, medication records and daily notes. We looked at five staff files. We reviewed training and supervision records and documents relating to the management of the service including complaints and compliments, minutes of meetings and quality audits.
After the site visit, on 13th May 2019 we interviewed four members of staff by telephone and made further requests for information which was provided by the registered manager.