Archived: Burbage Homecare Limited

Updated 19 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. We planned this inspection 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

One inspector and an expert by experience carried out the inspection. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Our expert by experience had cared for older people with a range of health needs.

Service and service type

Burbage Homecare Ltd is a home care agency that supports people who live in their own homes. Not everyone using the service received the regulated activity of personal care. 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.

The service had a manager who was registered with the CQC. A registered manager is a person who, with the provider, is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

We carried out the inspection visit on 20 May 2019. We gave 24 hours’ notice because we needed to be sure that there would be staff in the office.

What we did

Before the inspection visit we looked at information we held about the service and used this information as part of our inspection planning. The information included notifications. Notifications are information on important events that happen that the provider must let us know about. We requested and received information from the local authority that pay for the care of some of people.

Providers are required to send us 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.

Before our inspection visit our expert by experience made telephone calls to people or their relatives. They spoke with 15 people and four relatives of other people who were unable to speak with us. During our inspection we looked at six people’s care records. We spoke with the registered manager, the deputy manager, the training manager and three care staff. We looked at records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 19 June 2019

About the service

Burbage Home Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults. At the time of the inspection 50 people were using the service.

At the last inspection in April 2018 we found three breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated activities) Regulations 2014.The service was rated overall Requires Improvement. We found that complaints and concerns were not acted upon promptly and concerns were not resolved; that staff were not suitably deployed to meet the needs of the people using the service and that the systems used to monitor the service were not effective.

We found at this inspection that improvements were made to improve the issues we found at our previous inspection. The improvements made were sufficient to demonstrate the service was no longer in breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated activities) Regulations 2014. The service is rated overall Good.

People’s experience of using this service

People told us they felt safe when they were supported by care staff. The provider advised people how to stay safe in their homes, for example advising them about ‘scams’ known to be operating in the local area.

Care staff made people feel safe and secure when they supported them. Care staff were trained on how to support people safely, for example when they used equipment such a hoist to lift and transfer people.

Assessment of potential risk ensured that staff had information and guidance to keep people safe. Care staff knew who to report any concerns to.They told us they were confident that if they raised any concerns the registered manager would take them seriously.

The same care staff supported people most of the time. The provider recognised this was important to people and was working towards ensuring this. They organised support workers into small teams so that people had a core team of care staff people were familiar with. The provider employed enough support workers so that they could meet people’s needs in a timely way.

All staff went through a thorough recruitment process that ensured as far as possible that only suitable staff were employed. New care staff learnt about people’s needs by ‘shadowing’ experienced care staff then working alongside experienced colleagues before supporting people alone. They learnt about people’s likes, dislikes and preferences about how they wanted to be supported.

Care staff had training that supported them to have the knowledge and skills to do their job well and effectively meet people’s needs. Training was developed around the needs of people who used the service.

Care staff reminded people when to take their prescribed medicines safely. They had training about how to manage medicines safely.

Care staff followed safe practice for infection control. They wore protective equipment such as gloves and aprons when they supported people.

Care staff supported people to have enough to eat and drink; they either made meals or warmed meals that relatives had prepared.

People were supported to access health services when they needed. Care staff telephoned for doctors, nurses or emergency services to attend to a person if they were unwell.

Care staff respected people’s privacy and dignity and encouraged people to be as independent as possible.

People had opportunities to express their views about the care they wanted. They were involved in reviews of their care plans.

The provider adapted to people’s changing needs, for example when people changed their plans about the care and support they needed because of appointments of holidays.

People knew how to complain and were confident that the registered manager would resolve their complaints. People told us they found it easy to contact the office.

The provider had effective arrangements for monitoring the quality of the care and support people experienced. These included regularly asking people for their feedback and acting on what people said.

Rating at last inspection

At the last inspection we rated this service Requires improvement (report published on 2 June 2018).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

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