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 two inspectors.

Service and service type:

Bluebird Care (Lewisham and Southwark) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. At the time of the inspection they were supporting 47 people. Not everyone using the service receives 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. At the time of the inspection, 19 people were receving personal care.

It is a condition of the provider’s registration to have a registered manager in post. This is to make sure they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. There was no registered manager in place at the time of the inspection. The branch manager had submitted their application form on 14 January 2019 and it was being processed at the time of the inspection. Their registration was completed on 11 March 2019.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice because we needed to ensure somebody would be available to assist us with the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 20 February 2019 and ended on 22 February 2019. We visited the office location on 20 February to see the manager, office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Before the inspection: We reviewed the information the CQC held about the service. This included

notifications of significant incidents reported to the CQC and the previous inspection report. We also contacted a local authority commissioning team to support the planning of the inspection. In addition to this we reviewed the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection:

¿ We spoke with the branch manager, the deputy manager, the care co-ordinator, two directors and seven care workers.

¿ We observed a staff meeting.

¿ We looked at six people’s care plans and six staff files, staff training records, supervision and appraisal records.

¿ We looked at audit documents and various other records related to the management of the service.

After the inspection:

We called 11 people who used the service and managed to speak with three of them. We also spoke with three relatives and five care workers by telephone. We contacted three health and social care professionals who worked with people using the service and heard back from one of them.