Archived: Caremark (Cheshire West and Chester)

Updated 22 March 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 was carried out by one adult social care inspector and an 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.

Service and service type:

Caremark is a domiciliary care service providing support and personal care to people in their own homes.

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:

We gave the service 12 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and needed to be sure that there would be somebody in the office when we called.

The inspection activity started on 5 February 2019 when we telephoned people who used the service to gain their feedback and ended 15 February 2019 when we rang staff who worked at the service. We visited the office on 12 February 2019 to looked at records and meet the registered manager.

What we did:

Our planning considered all the information we held about the service. This included information about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse; and we looked at issues raised in complaints and how the service responded to them. We also contacted the local authority to request some feedback on the service but they did not commission with the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection we spoke on the telephone with seven people who used the service and six members of staff who delivered care. When we visited the office, we spoke with the registered manager, the nominated individual, the service manager, a member of staff that provided staff training and member of staff that provided care. We looked at five people’s care records and a selection of other records including quality monitoring records, recruitment and training records for four staff, staff meeting minutes and accident and incident records.

After the inspection the provider sent us some additional information about staff training and supervision, dates that spot checks of staff had been completed and information relating to the future development of the service.

Updated 22 March 2019

About the service: Caremark (Cheshire West and Chester) is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people who live in their own homes. At the time of the inspection the service was providing personal care to 40 people most of whom were older people living with age related conditions.

People’s experience of using this service:

People received a consistently good service. People received safe and effective care from kind and caring staff. Staff knew people well and had a good understanding of their personality traits as well as their health and social care needs.

People and their relatives had been fully involved in the assessment and planning of their care before they started using the service. A care plan had been developed with each person detailing their likes, dislikes, preferences and care needs.

Consent had been sought before any care had been delivered in line with legal requirements and people were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives.

Staff treated people and their relatives with kindness, dignity and respect. People’s privacy was protected and confidential information was stored securely. People were supported and encouraged to remain independent and do as much as possible for themselves. People were supported to maintain contact with people that mattered to them. The provider had organised and invited people who used the service to social events to help prevent social isolation.

Steps had been taken to make sure people were safe. Risks to people had been assessed and minimised in the least restrictive way. Staff had access to protective clothing such as gloves and aprons and had completed training in infection control.

Staff were safely recruited and well trained and they had a good understanding of people’s needs. Staff felt supported by the management team. Management and staff worked in collaboration with other stakeholders such as health and social care professionals and people’s relatives.

A complaints procedure was in place for people to follow. There was a system in place for recording complaints and outcomes.

The service met characteristics of Good in all areas more information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: Good (report published 31 August 2016).

Why we inspected: We inspected the service as part of our inspection schedule methodology for ‘Good’ rated services.

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.