Archived: Vantage Care Services Ltd

Updated 7 March 2018

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 29 January 2018 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. The inspection team consisted of one inspector.

Before we visited the service we checked the information we held about the service and the service provider. This included any notifications and safeguarding alerts. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. The inspection was informed by feedback from professionals which included the local borough contracts and commissioning team that had placed people with the service, and the local borough safeguarding adult’s team. We reviewed the information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

Before the inspection we spoke with seven people who used the service and three relatives. During our inspection we spoke with the registered manager, the care supervisor, the care coordinator, and three care workers. We looked at six care files, four staff files which included supervision records, appraisals and recruitment records, a range of audits, minutes for various meetings, three medicines records, accidents and incidents records, training information, policies and procedures, and complaint information.

Updated 7 March 2018

This inspection took place on 29 January 2018 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. The last inspection undertaken was a focused inspection on 6 July 2017. That inspection was to follow up if improvements had been made with the key questions of Safe and Well-led from a comprehensive inspection conducted on 24 February 2016. The July 2016 focused inspection found improvements had been made however we could not improve the rating at that time as a rating of good requires consistent practice over time.

Vantage Care Services Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. At the time of the inspection it was providing a service to 20 people.

There was a registered manager at the service at the time of our inspection. 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.

People and their relatives told us they felt the service was safe, staff were kind and the care received was good. We found staff had a good understanding of their responsibility with regard to safeguarding adults from abuse.

Risk assessments were in place which provided guidance on how to support people safely. Medicines were managed in a safe manner. There were sufficient numbers of suitable staff employed by the service in order to meet people’s needs. Staff had been recruited safely with appropriate checks on their backgrounds completed.

Person centred support plans were in place and people and their relatives were involved in planning the care and support they received.

Staff undertook training and received regular supervisions to help support them to provide effective care.

Staff we spoke with had a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). MCA is law protecting people who are unable to make decisions for themselves. People who had capacity to consent to their care had indicated their consent by signing consent forms. However, where people lacked capacity to consent to their care the provider had not followed the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005. We have made a recommendation about following the principles of the MCA.

The provider respected people’s cultural and religious needs when planning and delivering their care. Discussions with staff members showed they respected people’s sexual orientation so that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people could feel accepted and welcomed in the service.

The provider had a complaint procedure in place and people and their relatives knew how to make a complaint.

Staff told us the registered manager was approachable and open. The service had various quality assurance and monitoring mechanisms in place to improve the quality of care delivery.