Archived: Liverpool Innovation Park

Updated 30 December 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 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 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 took place on 06 October 2017 and was announced. The inspection was carried out by two adult social care inspectors. The inspection was prompted in part by information of concern which we had received from a whistle-blower and from the local authority.

Before our inspection, we looked at information the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had received about the service including notifications received from the registered provider and previously the registered manager. We checked that we had received these in a timely manner. We also looked at safeguarding referrals, complaints and any other information from members of the public.

We visited the office on 06 October 2017 and looked at records, which included four people’s care records, five staff files and other records relating to the management of the service. We also visited the home of one person using the service.

During the inspection we spoke to the registered provider, and another staff member. Following this visit we made phone calls to relatives of the people who used the service and other professionals.

Updated 30 December 2017

This inspection took place on 06 October 2017, this was an announced inspection. CVC Care was a domiciliary care agency providing care and support for people living in their own homes in the geographical area of Liverpool. The provider was registered with the Care Quality Commission for the regulated activity of personal care. This was our first inspection of the service since their registration in December 2016. At the time of our inspection we believed there were 19 people receiving a service from CVC Care.

A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager had recently left and the registered provider was managing the service.

During this inspection we found breaches of Regulation 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18 and 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

The registered provider lacked oversight of the organisation. The processes for ensuring that staff that had been recruited were suitable for the role of working with vulnerable adults were inadequate and incomplete. We looked at the staff files for five staff members. We saw that the registered provider had failed to complete their obligations to ensure that people employed were suitable and of good character. The registered provider had also failed to obtain a full disclosure and barring service (DBS) check for some staff. A DBS check looks at any criminal records a person may have and checks to see if people have been placed on a list barring them from working with vulnerable adults.

There was no evidence that staff had been inducted or had followed a probationary period into their role or received appropriate support. The provider had no method of assessing the performance and suitability of staff in their role of supporting vulnerable adults.

Not everyone receiving a service from CVC Care had a care plan with risk assessments in place. Some care plans and risk assessments were at times vague or had information about the wrong person to who was named on the documents. We were unable to access historical care plan records and service delivery for any person. This meant that we saw no evidence that peoples care plans had been regularly reviewed.

We saw that part of the care plans for the people receiving a service had a section that said if the person had given consent to receiving care. However as the care plans were not always accurate or about the named person we could not be sure that the information regarding consent was correct.

The service had policies and procedures in place; however the service did not follow these policies, examples being recruitment and quality assurance. This meant that the polices in place were not working documents and so were not being followed. We identified through discussions that the registered provider did not have knowledge of the policies as they did not know that they had been named as responsible for specific actions.

There was no evidence that any staff had received training in safeguarding vulnerable adults. The registered provider told us that the staff had been trained in in safeguarding when they were a previous employment/job. This was inadequate as this meant that staff were potentially providing support without being able to recognise any person who was at risk and without knowledge of who to contact in case of emergencies. This meant that staff might behave inappropriately or any potential abuse may be missed and not reported appropriately.

Following our inspection CVC Care de-registered with CQC and is no longer carrying out regulated activities.