Icare Services

Updated 7 September 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 12 July 2017 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in to meet with us. The inspection team comprised of one inspector.

We had not asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. Providers are required to notify the Care Quality Commission about specific events and incidents that occur including serious injuries to people receiving care and any safeguarding matters. We refer to these as notifications. We reviewed the notifications the provider had sent us and in addition considered feedback provided to us by commissioners of the service and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used all this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection visit.

At the time of our inspection the service was offering support to one person in their own home once a week. The service does not employ any staff and care is delivered by the registered manager. During our inspection visit we spoke with the relative of one person and the registered manager. We sampled records, including people’s care plans, complaints processes, medication and quality monitoring. After the inspection the provider sent us information that we had requested.

Updated 7 September 2017

This was the provider's first inspection since their registration in November 2014. They had not been inspected before this time as they were not offering support to people. ICare is registered as a domiciliary Care Agency and provides personal care to people in their own homes. This inspection took place on 12 July 2017 and was announced. The provider had been given 48 hours’ notice of the visit to the office so that we could be sure someone would be available to meet with us. This was the first inspection of this service.

On the day of our inspection they were providing care to one person. There was a registered manager at this service. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

We did not find enough evidence about the key questions we ask about services, or the experiences of people using the service, to provide a rating to each of the five questions. We were therefore not able to rate the service against the characteristics of inadequate, requires improvement, good and outstanding to provide an overall rating for the service.at this inspection.

We found people received a service that was based on their personal needs and wishes. Changes in people's needs were identified and responded to. Risks people might experience with their care or environment were being managed safely. People did not receive support with their medicines.

People's needs had been assessed before they started to receive support from the service and relatives had been involved in developing and updating their care plans. We found the information contained in the care records was individualised and clearly identified people's needs and preferences.

No staff were currently employed by the service. We were unable to judge the effectiveness of the service in response to a wider range of possible risks that can occur. Relatives told us they knew how to make a complaint and felt confident that it would be dealt with well.

As the service was so small the registered manager had not yet developed a quality monitoring process to identify if the service was meeting people’s needs or how it could be improved. Audits had not begun to take place, and information was not yet reviewed for trends and to identify learning opportunities.

We were unable to gather sufficient evidence for the key lines of enquiry to provide a rating for each key question and an overall rating for the service at this inspection. We will be in contact with the provider as the service develops and decide on a suitable time to carry out the next inspection and provide a rating for the service.