Care With Compassion

Updated 26 June 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 consisted of one inspector.

Service and service type:

Care With Compassion is a domiciliary care service. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also take into account any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection, eight people were receiving personal care.

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 inspection was announced.

Inspection site visit activity started on 16 May and ended on 20 May 2019. We visited the office location on 16 May to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We spoke with staff and relatives on the phone on the 17 May 2019 and made further calls to relatives on the 20 May 2019.

What we did:

The provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

We reviewed information we had received about the service. This included details about incidents the service must notify us about, such as abuse. We sought feedback from the local authority, professionals working with the service and the clinical commissioning group (CCG). We used this information to plan our inspection.

People in receipt of care were unable to speak with us on the phone. During this inspection we spoke with the relatives of four people who received personal care. We spoke with the registered manager, office manager, a team leader and three members of care staff.

We reviewed four people's care records and other documents relating to the management of the service such as policies, compliments, and feedback from professionals.

Updated 26 June 2019

About the service: Care With Compassion is a domiciliary care service that was providing personal care to eight people at the time of the inspection.

Care With Compassion is registered to provide care to younger adults, older people and people with dementia, physical disability, sensory impairment and learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder.

People’s experience of using this service:

The registered manager did not clearly understand their role in relation to the completion of mental capacity assessments and best interest decisions for people that lack capacity. However, we found that people were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The strength of each medicine was not recorded on the administration page of the medicines administration record (MAR) which put people at risk of receiving the wrong medicine dosage. We made a recommendation for the service to review all MAR records and add the strength of medicines on the administration page.

The service had not sought pharmacy advice when administering medicines hidden in food. This meant staff may not understand how giving medicines with food may affect how the body absorbs the medicine.

Staff received training prior to giving people their medicines and people received their medicines on time.

The registered manager had a good overview of the service and was in regular contact with people receiving care and their relatives.

The service displayed CQC’s rating of performance at their business location and on their website.

People were supported by staff that were kind and caring, their privacy and dignity was respected.

People were supported by staff that had been safely recruited and had adequate training to meet their needs.

Risks associated with people falling and moving around their home environment had been identified and care plans were reviewed regularly and updated as and when people’s needs changed. Staff understood risks associated with people’s healthcare conditions.

People were supported to eat and drink enough. Their choices were respected, and they were in control of their care.

People’s independence was promoted, and they received individualised support from staff that knew them well.

Concerns were promptly responded to and people knew the management team by name.

The service met the characteristics for a rating of ‘requires improvement’’ in two of the five key questions we inspected and a rating of ‘good’ in three. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was ‘requires improvement’.

Rating at last inspection: Good (Report published 18 October 2016).

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up: Going forward we will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our re-inspection schedule for those services rated Good.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk