Westminster Homecare Limited (Enfield, Havering and Waltham Forest)

Updated 28 March 2020

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by three inspectors, a pharmacist inspector and two Experts by Experience, who made telephone calls to people using the service and their relatives. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. One of the three inspectors interviewed care workers by telephone and the other two inspectors attended the office.

Service and service type

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

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 7 January 2020 and ended on 9 January 2020.

What we did before the inspection

We looked at the information we held about the service. This information included statutory notifications the provider had sent to us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We reviewed the provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who used the service and relatives of 17 other people who used the service about their experience of the care provided. We met with six care workers, three care coordinators, the registered manager, regional operations manager, operations director and training manager. We also spoke with seven care workers by telephone.

We reviewed a range of records. This included fourteen people’s care records and thirteen people’s medication records. We looked at nine staff files in relation to recruitment, training and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits, quality assurance, complaints, safeguarding, policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Updated 28 March 2020

About the service

Westminster Homecare Limited (Enfield, Havering and Waltham Forest) is a domiciliary care service registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. At the time of our inspection 231 people were being supported with personal care.

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

The service assessed risks to people’s safety and wellbeing. There was guidance in place for staff on how to support the person to manage those risks, for example, how to help somebody move from bed to wheelchair or how to support them with eating. Medicines were managed safely.

The service employed enough staff and ensured they were safely recruited, trained and supervised to do their job well.

Care plans were detailed and person-centred and guided staff on how to provide care to the person to meet their needs and their preferences. People were involved and consulted in planning their care.

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.

The service supported people with their health needs. People were generally happy with quality of the service. Although people were overall happy with their care workers a number of people did not like the time their care workers visited. The service was not responsive to people’s choice of times for their care visits, despite providing good care. We have made a recommendation that the service provider make improvements in responding to people’s preferences.

The service had made improvements following the last inspection and although the provider had moved another branch into this branch office increasing the number of staff and people they were providing care to, they had been able to sustain improvements made. There were effective quality monitoring systems in place and the registered manager shared plans for further improvements with us. The service responded promptly to complaints and concerns.

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 21 November 2018).

At this inspection we found improvements had been made and sustained and the provider was meeting fundamental standards.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.