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Archived: Bluebird Care (Herefordshire)

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit 4, The Granary, Wormbridge Court, Wormbridge, Hereford, Herefordshire, HR2 9DH (01981) 570732

Provided and run by:
Wye Valley Independent Living Ltd

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 15 October 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 team consisted one inspector.

Service and service type

Bluebird Care (Herefordshire) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider 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 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 29 August 2019 and ended on 17 September 2019. We visited the office location on 29 August 2019.

What we did before inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority who work with 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 of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with three people using the service and four relatives to ask about their experience of care. We spoke with the provider, four care staff members, including a care supervisor.

We looked at five people's care records, multiple medication records and information relating to the quality and management of the service. These included complaints and compliments, staff training records, minutes of staff meetings and systems for managing accidents or incidents.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 15 October 2019

About the service

Bluebird Care (Herefordshire) is a service providing personal care to people in their own homes. People supported include younger and older people who may live with dementia, physical disabilities or sensory impairments. Twenty-seven people were in receipt of care at the time of the inspection.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People’s risks were clearly identified, and staff were supported to understand what action they needed to take to address people’s safety needs. Staff understood how to recognise abuse and were confident the manager and senior staff would assist people, should any concerns be identified.

People and relatives could rely on care being provided as agreed and planned. The provider recognised some people had recently experienced occasional delays in their care. The provider was addressing this. Staff took action to reduce the likelihood of people experiencing infections. The provider had put processing place to take learning from any incidents.

People decided what care they wanted and how they preferred to be support before care started. Staff used their skills and knowledge when caring for people and were supported to provide good care through induction and training programmes. Staff had opportunities to develop their skills to support people’s specific needs. People were supported to see other health professionals, and to have enough to eat and drink, so they would enjoy the best health possible.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. The provider recognised the recording of people’s capacity varied and gave us assurances they would ensure staff were consistently provided with guidance on how to support people.

People knew they were valued by staff and had developed good relationships with the staff who supported them. Relatives said staff knew people well and encouraged them to ask for assistance. People made their own decisions about their care, and staff promoted people’s rights to dignity, independence and privacy.

People and relatives planned people’s care with staff said their views were listened to. Staff recognised when people’s needs changed and adjusted the care so their needs were met. The provider planned to increase the range of information available to support people’s communication needs as these changed. Learning was taken from complaints, to prevent reoccurrences. People’s wishes at the end of their lives had been established. The provider told us they planned to further enhance opportunities for people’s wishes to be explored, in case of sudden death.

People and relatives were positive about the care they received and were encouraged to make suggestions about the care provided. There had been changes to the senior management team, and staff told us this had brought about improvements in people’s care and their support. Staff understood how they were expected to care for people and had received compliments regarding the quality of care provided to people. The provider, senior team and external auditors checked the safety and quality of the care, so they could be assured people’s needs and preferences were met. The provider understood their responsibilities to drive through improvements to people’s care, and development of the service was informed by work undertaken with other specialist organisations.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 28 October 2016).

Follow up

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

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