Care Sante Kent

Updated 18 May 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. An expert by experience made telephone calls to people using the agency. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert had experience caring for an older person.

Service and service type:

121 Care and Mobility is a domiciliary care service. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older people, people that were living with dementia and people with complex conditions such as Cerebral Palsy and Parkinson's Disease.

The service had a manager who was going through the process of being 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 2 days’ notice of the inspection site visit because we required the registered manager to gain consent from people to contact them for feedback.

Inspection site visit activity started on 3 April 2019 and ended on that day. We visited the office location to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Before visiting the service, we looked information sent to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) through notifications. Notifications are information we receive when a significant event happens, like a death or a serious injury.

We reviewed eight people's care records, which included care plans, risk assessments, daily care records and medicines records. We looked at documentation that related to staff management and recruitment including four staff files. We also looked at a sample of audits, surveys, minutes of meetings and policies and procedures.

We gathered people’s experiences of the service. We spoke to 12 people who used the service and 4 relatives. We looked at feedback given by people through the providers quality audit processes. We also spoke with the provider, manager and six members of staff. We received feedback from two external health and social care professionals.

Updated 18 May 2019

About the service:

121 Care and Mobility is domiciliary care provider that was providing personal care to people in their own homes. People receiving support had a range of needs including, the elderly, people that were living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 280 people receiving personal care.

People’s experience of using this service:

• The provider had made changes to improve the service for people. Care plans had all been reviewed to make sure that they reflected the care that people needed and people told us that they had been involved with this.

• Care was person centred, achieved good outcomes and people were offered choice and involved wherever possible.

• People's care plans reflected their needs and preferences and staff could explain specific care that people required.

• People received care from staff who were well supported with induction, training and ongoing supervision.

• People knew how to complain and that any concerns would be listened and responded to by the provider. Actions were taken as a response to complaints.

• Feedback was sought and used to make improvements. Feedback from people, relatives, health care professionals and staff were all positive.

• Quality monitoring systems included audits, checks on staff practice and checks on people's satisfaction with the service they received, using questionnaires.

• The provider has systems in place to ensure they kept up to date with developments in the sector and changes in the law.

• Lessons were learnt and used to make improvements.

• The service was led by an experienced, competent manager who understood their role and responsibilities, as did staff. The service had a clear management structure and people had confidence in the manager and provider.

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection the service was rated Inadequate (report published on 09 October 2018). This service has been in Special Measures. Services that are in Special Measures are kept under review and inspected again within six months. We expect services to make significant improvements within this timeframe. During this inspection the service demonstrated to us that improvements have been made and is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is now out of Special Measures.

At this inspection on 3 April 2019 we found that sufficient progress had been achieved to meet all the breaches of regulations.

Why we inspected: This was a comprehensive planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor this domicillary care agency and plan to inspect in line with our re-inspection schedule for those services rated Good

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