Updated 24 April 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 two inspectors 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. They had experience of caring for elderly people.
Service and service type:
Bluebird Care (Maidstone) is a domiciliary care agency which provides care and support for people in their own homes. Care is provided for a range of people including older people and people at the end of their lives. The service operates in areas of West Kent. Not everyone using Bluebird Care (Maidstone) received a regulated activity; 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 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 4 days’ notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager and other staff we wanted to speak with may out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 26 February 2019 and finished on 27 February 2019. We visited the office location on 26 February 2019 to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records, staff records and policies and procedures. We asked the registered manager if they could seek the permission of people using the service to visit them in their home to gain their feedback, and we visited those people on 27 February 2019. We spoke to care staff on 27 February 2019 on the telephone.
What we did:
We reviewed information we had received about the service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as allegations of abuse. Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they intend to make. This information helps support our inspections. The provider was not able to complete a Provider Information Return as we had not requested this. Therefore, we looked at this information when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
During our inspection we looked at the following:
¿ Notifications we received from the service
¿ Five people’s care records
¿ Four staff recruitment files, staff supervision and training records
¿ Audits and quality assurance reports
¿ Rotas
¿ Medicine records
We also visited four people in their homes and spoke to them and their relatives about the support they received. We spoke with eight people and five relatives on the telephone. We also spoke with the registered provider, the operations manager, the registered manager, the live-in care manager, the training manager, the office support manager, a care coordinator and five care staff.