Background to this inspection
Updated
23 February 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 one inspector.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.
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. The registered manager was also the provider for the service and they had a manager in place for the day to day running of the service.
Notice of inspection
We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 1 February 2022 and ended on 2 February 2022. We visited the location’s office on 1 February 2022.
What we did before the inspection
The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority.
We used all this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spoke three people who used the service and one relative. We spoke with the registered manager, manager and two care workers. We reviewed three people’s care records, two staff files and information in relation to the running of the service including audits.
Updated
23 February 2022
About the service
Homecare Professionals (Essex) Ltd is a domiciliary care service and is registered to provide personal care to older and younger people, people with physical disability, sensory impairment and people may be living with dementia in their own homes. At the time of the inspection, 28 people were using the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were very positive about their experience of using the service. One person told us, “They are perfect, brilliant I don’t need anything else.” A relative told us, “They look after my mum really well, they are all lovely and caring.”
Care and treatment were planned and delivered in a way that was intended to ensure people's safety and welfare. People were cared for safely by staff who had been recruited and employed after appropriate checks had been completed. Staff had received appropriate training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to meet people’s needs.There were systems in place to minimise the risk of infection and to learn lessons from accidents and incidents. Medication was dispensed by staff who had received training to do so.
The registered manager had systems in place to monitor the care people were receiving through audits and feedback from people. This information was reviewed on a regular basis and improvements made where needed.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update: The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 5 June 2019) and there were breaches of regulation. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.
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 changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Homecare Professionals (Essex) limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.