We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

One adult social care inspector and an expert by experience who had experience of supporting people with complex needs.

Service and service type:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to older adults. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

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 visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that someone would be available to support the inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started on 7 and ended on 8 February 2019. We visited the office location on 7 February to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. On the 8 February we visited people in their own homes and then returned to the office to provide feedback on the whole inspection.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection we gathered all the information we held about the service and used it to develop a plan for the inspection. We reviewed information provided to us from the Local Authority safeguarding and quality teams and information we received from the provider by way of notifications. We also used the information sent to us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). 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.

During the inspection we spoke to 15 people on the telephone. Nine people in receipt of the service and 6 relatives about the service they received. We then visited three people in their home. We spoke with four staff during the inspection site visit including the registered manager and we gathered the views of five additional staff following the site visit. We looked at eight care plans for people both in the office and in their homes.

We reviewed information the service held about how they monitored the service they provided and assured themselves it was meeting the needs of the people they supported. This included accident records, audits, medicine records and various meeting minutes.

Following the inspection, we requested the registered manager opened the complaints procedure to formally review an incident and feedback to us the findings of the investigation. At the time of writing this report we had not received any information.