Updated 2 February 2019
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is 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.
This inspection was conducted on 8 and 9 January 2019.
Inspection team: This inspection was conducted by one adult social care inspector.
Service and service type: This was a care at home service [domiciliary care agency]. It provided care to people in their own homes.
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: The first day of the inspection was announced. We informed the registered manager of our inspection 48 hours prior. This was due to the service being small and the registered manager often being out of the office. We needed to be sure someone would be available.
What we did: Our plan took into account information the provider sent us since the last inspection. We also considered information about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse. We obtained information from the local authority commissioners and safeguarding team, Healthwatch and other professionals who work with the service. We had not sent the Provider Information Return (PIR) to the registered manager in time for the inspection. The PIR 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. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection, we spoke with one person using the service to ask about their experience of the care provided. With consent, we also visited one person in their own home. We spoke with the registered manager, deputy manager, and two care staff. We looked at three people's care records and a selection of medicines and medicines administration records (MARs). We looked at other records including quality monitoring records, recruitment and training records for four staff members.
Details are in the key questions below.