Archived: Knowles Home Care Limited

Updated 18 October 2017

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.

We undertook an announced focused inspection of Knowles Home Care Limited on 5 September 2017. This inspection was done to check that improvements to meet legal requirements planned by the provider after our 23 February 2017 inspection had been made. This is because the service was not meeting the legal requirements of Regulation 17, Good Governance.

The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Our expert for this inspection had experience of the care of older people.

We also reviewed the notifications we had been sent and the action plan from the provider to meet the breaches of regulations from the last inspection. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that providers must tell us about .

We also spoke with three people using the service, six relatives, the registered manager, the deputy manager, and two care staff. The registered manager told us that currently the deputy manager was the operational manager, responsible for day-to-day staff management and issues involving providing care to people using the service. When people and relatives referred to ‘the manager’, they were referring to the deputy manager.

We looked at records relating to aspects of the service including medicine administration, staffing and quality assurance. We also looked at three people’s care records.

Updated 18 October 2017

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 23 February 2017. A breach of legal requirements was found. After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the breach.

We undertook this focused inspection to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for (location's name) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Knowles Home Care Ltd provides personal care to people living in their own homes. On the day of the inspection the deputy manager informed us that 10 people were receiving a personal care service from the agency.

This inspection took place on 5 September 2017. The inspection was announced as we needed to be sure that someone was available to carry out the inspection with us.

At our last inspection in 23 February 2017 the service was not meeting regulations with regard to having systems in place to ensure quality services. We followed up these issues and found improvements had been made, though further improvements were needed to show that people did receive a quality service.

A registered manager was in place at the time of this inspection visit. 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 using the service and their relatives said they thought that staff provided a safe service.

People's risk assessments were in place to ensure people received safe personal care.

Essential policies and procedures to keep people safe and provide safe care were, in the main, in place.

People, their relatives and staff were satisfied with how the service was run by the deputy manager.

People and their relatives told us that staff were friendly and caring.

Management had carried out audits to try to ensure the service was meeting people’s needs, however, the system needed strengthening to ensure that there was sufficient information to show that people using the service had been fully supported.

We could not improve the rating for Good Governance from Requires Improvement because to do so requires consistent good practice over time. We will check this during our next planned comprehensive inspection.

The service was no longer in breach of the regulations and remains rated as Requires Improvement.