Northants Community Care Limited

Updated 12 January 2023

Background to this 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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

Registered manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 2 days’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection. We also gave time for the registered manager to send us inspection information, so we did not have to spend an extended amount of time in the office of the service.

Inspection activity started on 13 December 2022 and ended 14 December 2022. We visited the office location on 14 December 2022.

What we did before the inspection

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

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 people who used the service about their experience of the care provided and 3 relatives. We also spoke with 3 care staff, the nominated individual who is also the provider, and the registered manager.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 3 care plans. We looked at 3 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 12 January 2023

About the service

Northants Community Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people with health and social care needs in their own homes.

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. At the time of the inspection 13 people received personal care support.

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

The provider’s systems and processes did not always effectively monitor the quality of the service provided. Audits undertaken to monitor the quality of care provided were not always in place to identify issues needing improvement, such as the reliability of the service.

Systems and processes were in place to support people’s safety. People were supported by staff who had undergone a safe recruitment process. People and family members spoke of the friendliness and caring attitude of staff and management.

There were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs. People told us they felt safe and staff ensured they were safeguarded from harm. Staff followed the provider’s policy and procedure for infection prevention and control.

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.

Staff were supported through ongoing monitoring and good communication, which ensured information was shared in a timely manner to support in the delivery of personal care.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

This service was registered with us on 5 December 2014 and this is the 5th inspection.

The last rating for this service was Good, published on 4 June 2019.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted by concerns we received that safe care was not being provided to a person. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has remained good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Northants Community Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.