Updated 28 June 2019
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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.
Inspection team: This inspection was carried out by one inspector and one 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. Their area of expertise is older people and dementia care.
Service and service type
Alliance Care and Support is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses, flats and specialist housing. It provides a service to people in the Clacton on Sea and surrounding areas. At the time of our inspection the service was supporting 71 people and employed 30 members of care staff.
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 inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection visit because we needed to be sure that someone was available at the office. Inspection site activity took place on 28 May 2019 and telephone calls to people using the service, staff and relatives were made on additional days. We visited the office site location to see the registered manager and office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did when preparing for and carrying out this inspection:
Before the inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about and we sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least 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.
During the inspection, we spoke with five people and four relatives of people who use the service to ask about their experience of the care provided. We spoke to four members of staff and the registered manager.
We also reviewed a range of records. These included five people's care and medication records. We also looked at five staff files including supervision records, records relating to the management of the service and a variety of policies and procedures developed and implemented by the provider. We looked at records relating to recruitment, training and systems for monitoring quality.