Archived: Phoenix Professional Home Care

Updated 2 August 2019

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. 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

The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

Phoenix Professional Home Care 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 it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We also contacted health and social care commissioners who commission care from the provider and monitor the care and support that people receive. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with six people who used the service and three people’s relative. We also spoke with four members of staff that included the registered provider, and three care and support staff.

We looked at various records, including care records for six people who were using the service. We also examined records in relation to the management of the service such as staff recruitment files, quality assurance checks, staff training and supervision records, safeguarding information and accidents and incident information.

Updated 2 August 2019

About the service:

Phoenix Professional Home Care is a domiciliary care agency. The service provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. At the time of our inspection 31 people were receiving personal care.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found:

People continued to be cared for safely and with compassion. Staff were appropriately recruited. There were enough staff to provide care and support to people to meet their needs. Medicines systems were well organised, and staff managed people’s medicines safely.

Staff had access to the support, supervision and training they required to work effectively in their roles. Staff supported people to have a healthy balanced diet. People’s support was overseen by a wide variety of health and social care professionals. People had prompt access to healthcare support when needed.

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.

Staff were caring, person centred and had built up trusting relationships with people. People were treated with kindness, dignity and respect and staff spent time getting to know them and their specific needs and wishes.

People had personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s personal preferences. Information was provided to people in an accessible format to enable them to make decisions about their care and support. People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint and the provider had implemented effective systems to manage any complaints received.

The service had a positive ethos and an open culture. The registered manager was approachable, understood the needs of people, and listened to staff. People that used the service and their relatives had the opportunity to feedback on the quality of the support and care provided. Any required improvements were made in response to people's suggestions. There were effective systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and drive improvements.

Rating at last inspection:

The last rating for this service was good (published 20 December 2016).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.

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.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk