Archived: Mulberry Home Care: Head Office

Updated 20 April 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 registered persons were 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.

Before our inspection visit we reviewed information we held about the service. This included the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form the registered persons had completed to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they planned to make. We also reviewed other information we held about the service such as notifications. These refer to events that happened in the service which the registered persons are required to tell us about.

We also spoke by telephone with four people who used the service and with three of their relatives. We did this to obtain their views about how well the service was meeting people’s needs.

We visited the administrative office of the service on 21 February 2017 and the inspection team consisted of a single inspector. The inspection was announced. The registered persons were given a short period of notice because they are sometimes out of the office supporting staff or visiting people who use the service. We needed to be sure that they would be available to contribute to the inspection.

During the inspection visit we spoke with two care practitioners who provided care for people at home. In addition, we spoke with the registered manger. We also examined records relating to how the service was run including visit times, staffing arrangements, recruitment, training and quality assurance.

After the inspection visit we spoke by telephone with another three care practitioners.

Updated 20 April 2017

Mulberry Home Care: Head Office is registered to provide care for people in their own homes. The service can provide care for both children and adults some of whom may live with a physical disability and/or have special sensory needs. At the time of our inspection the service was providing care for 24 people all of whom were older people. The service had its office in Market Deeping and covered the town, surrounding villages and one location in Bourne.

This was our first inspection of the service since it was registered by us on 7 July 2015.

The service was operated by a company that was the registered provider. It was owned by two directors one of whom was also the registered manager. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. In this report when we speak about both the company and the registered manager we refer to them as being, ‘the registered persons’.

We found that there was one breach of regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. This was because the registered persons did not have a robust recruitment procedure. This had reduced their ability to ensure that only suitable people were employed to work in the service.

Staff knew how to keep people safe from situations in which they might experience abuse and people had been supported to avoid preventable accidents. Medicines were managed safely and people had been helped to obtain all of the healthcare they needed. There were enough staff and visits were completed in the right way.

Staff knew how to care for people in the right way including supporting people to eat and drink enough. However, staff had not received all of the training and support which the registered persons said they needed.

CQC is required by law to monitor how registered persons apply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and to report on what we find. The registered manager and staff had received training in this subject and this enabled them to help people make decisions for themselves. When people lacked the capacity to make their own decisions the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and codes of practice were followed. This helped to protect people’s rights by ensuring decisions were made that were in their best interests.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff recognised people’s right to privacy and promoted their dignity. Confidential information was kept private.

People had been consulted about the care they wanted and they had been given all of the assistance they needed including people who lived with dementia. Staff recognised the importance of promoting equality and diversity by supporting people to make choices about their lives. There were arrangements to quickly and fairly resolve complaints.

Some quality checks had not been robustly completed and good team working was not fully promoted. However, people had been consulted about how best to develop the service. Staff were supported to speak out if they had any concerns and people had benefited from staff acting upon good practice guidance.