• Services in your home
  • Homecare service

Archived: Care2Connect

Overall: Requires improvement read more about inspection ratings

54-56 South Street, Tarring, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 7LS 0800 326 5522

Provided and run by:
Care2Connect Ltd

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 10 June 2022

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. 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

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors who visited the service and one inspector who sought feedback from people by telephone.

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 service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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. At the time of our inspection there was not a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service notice on the morning of the inspection. This was because we wanted to ensure there would be someone available at the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. 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 visited the service on two days 29 March 2022 and 7 April 2022. We spoke with the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke with the Chief Operating Officer, a regional manager and seven care and office staff. We received feedback from the local authority involved in directly supporting the service.

We reviewed a range of records. We looked at four staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. We looked at 11 people’s care plan records and spoke with nine people and relatives about their experience of the service. We reviewed a range of policies, training data and quality assurance records.

After the inspection

We sought assurances from the nominated individual about how staffing would be planned and that systems for management oversight would be reviewed and improved.

Overall inspection

Requires improvement

Updated 10 June 2022

About the service

Care2Connect is a domiciliary care agency providing care to people living in their own homes. At the time of inspection, the service was providing personal care to 120 people.

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

The service was not always safe and well led. The provider did not have robust systems for people to share feedback or raise concerns. People did not always experience responses to concerns they raised.

People and their relatives did not always find the service to be well organised. Rosters had been planned one day in advance so people and their relatives were left unclear about how care calls would be fulfilled.

Communication about changes to the organisation and care calls was not always timely. Late and missed calls were not always notified to people, leaving them concerned about whether they would receive a call.

People felt safe with care staff and appreciated their friendly, respectful approach to support.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 04 June 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to a period of insufficient staffing leading to the involvement of the local authority to support the delivery of people’s care. 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 changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

Following our inspection the provider took steps to review their processes to identify areas for improvement.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care2Connect on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We identified a breach of Regulation 16 (Receiving and acting on complaints) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and Regulation 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.