Archived: Plymouth Care Services Limited

Updated 4 May 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 an inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using services or cares for someone who lives with dementia.

Service and service type: Plymouth Care Services limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. The agency currently supports 17 people with 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. The registered manager was also the registered provider.

Notice of inspection: We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small, and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be available.

What we did: Prior to the inspection, the provider sent us a Provider Information Return (PIR). Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We also looked at notifications they had made to us about important events. In addition, we reviewed all other information sent to us from other stakeholders, for example the local authority and members of the public.

Inspection site visit activity started on 15 April 2019 and ended on 18 April 2019.

During the inspection we contacted and spoke to:

•14 people and/or their relatives

•The registered manager

•Three members of support staff

•Plymouth City Council commissioning team

•Healthwatch Plymouth

We looked at:

•Policy and procedures

•Three people's care records

•Records of complaints

•Training records for all staff

•Three personnel records

Updated 4 May 2019

About the service: Plymouth Care Services Limited provides personal care in people's homes to adults within Plymouth and surrounding rural areas.

People’s experience of using this service: People told us they received a well organised service and were supported by kind and caring staff. People were treated with respect and had their human rights protected.

People’s needs were fully recorded and known by staff, so their care was consistently delivered. Risks associated with people’s care needs were well managed.

People were supported by staff who had the skills and knowledge to meet their needs safely and effectively and followed best practice.

People’s views were valued and used to make changes to the ongoing development of the service.

The service was well managed, by a manager who was visible and ‘hands on’. Governance systems to check the quality and safety of the service were informal, therefore we recommended that the provider considers a governance framework which involves the auditing of standards against regulation and best practice.

More information is in Detailed Findings below.

Rating at last inspection: Good (Report published 12 November 2016).

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our reinspection 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