Age UK Bournemouth

Updated 28 June 2019

The inspection:

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.

Inspection team:

The inspection team consisted of one inspector and three CQC staff from the National Customer Service Centre (NCSC), as the provider agreed to taking part in a CQC pilot for NCSC staff to contact people by telephone for their feedback.

Service and service type:

Age UK Bournemouth is based in Winton and is registered to provide personal care with the Care Quality Commission. The service provides foot care to approximately 900 people who receive the service once in every six to eight week period.

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. At the time of this inspection the registered manager was on maternity leave. Appropriate management arrangements were in place to ensure the home was being managed effectively.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection visit. We needed to be sure that people were informed that we would be contacting them by telephone, and we needed a manager to be available to facilitate this inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started 24 April 2019 and ended on 16 May 2019. We visited the office location on 24 April 2019 to see the registered manager. We reviewed people's care records, policies and procedures, records relating to the management of the service, training records and the recruitment records of care workers. We spoke with staff by telephone.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service. This included information about incidents the provider had notified us of and contacting health professionals for their views on the service.

The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what it does well and improvements they plan to make.

NCSC staff spoke with 15 people by telephone on the 9 and 10 May 2019.

We requested further information from the registered manager related to the service, this was provided promptly.

Updated 28 June 2019

About the service:

Age UK Bournemouth is based in Winton and is registered to provide a foot care service to people in their own homes. This includes simple toe nail cutting, information on foot hygiene and liaison service to the NHS chiropody service.

At the time of our inspection they were providing foot care to 900 people (over a six week period) in their own homes around the Bournemouth, Poole Christchurch, and East Dorset areas.

What life is like for people using this service:

• Met characteristics of Good in all areas;

• Everyone said they had a regular staff member who visited them every six to eight weeks. People described the staff as being “Reliable.” “Very good.” And “X [staff] does a perfect job, she is clean, uses medical wipes and a protective apron. It’s all done correctly”

• People were supported to access health services promptly. Staff knew people well including their communication needs and could identify when a person was feeling unwell, or in pain or upset.

• Recruitment practises continued to be followed.

• Staff knew how to recognise and report abuse and were confident any concerns raised would be responded to by their manager.

• Risk assessments were in place to ensure people’s safety.

• There continued to be a range of checks in place to ensure the safety of the service.

• more information is in the full report

Rating at last inspection: Good (The date the last report was published was 19 October 2016).

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection. The service remains Good.

Follow up: Going forward we will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our inspection schedule for those services rated as Good. We will continue to monitor the intelligence we receive about the service. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

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