Radis Community Care (Eden Place ECH)

Updated 30 April 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:

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type:

This service provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented, and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service.

Not everyone using Radis Community Care (Eden Place ECH) received a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

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:

This inspection was unannounced

Inspection site visit activity started on 25 March and ended on 26 March 2019. We visited the office location on 25 March 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We spoke with people on 26 March 2019.

What we did:

As part of the inspection, we reviewed the information available to us about the service, such as the notifications that they had sent us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also reviewed the provider information return (PIR) submitted to us before this inspection. This is information that the provider is required to send to us, which gives us some key information about the service and tells us what the service does well and any improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the agency and made the judgements in this report. We also asked stakeholders, such as the local authority safeguarding team and commissioners for their views of the agency, although we received no comments.

During our inspection, we spoke with four people using the service and one visitor. We also spoke with three members of care staff and the registered manager. We checked four people’s care records and two people’s medicines administration records (MARs). We checked records relating to how the agency is run and monitored, such as audits, accidents and incidents forms, staff recruitment, training and health and safety records.

Updated 30 April 2019

About the service: Radis Community Care (Eden Place ECH) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own flats within an extra care housing scheme. It provides a service to older people. There were 36 people receiving a personal care service at the time of our inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People we met and spoke with were happy with the care agency and the staff who provided their care.

People were safe using the agency because staff knew what they were doing, they had been trained and visited people to learn how to care for them before having to do so. There were enough staff, and the registered manager also visited people regularly. Key recruitment checks were obtained before new staff started work.

People told us they always received their medicines and that staff knew how these should be given. Medicine records were completed accurately and with enough detail. Staff supported people with meals and drinks. They did this in a hygienic way, using protective equipment, such as gloves and aprons. Staff followed advice from health care professionals and made sure they asked people’s consent before caring for them.

People liked the staff that cared for them. People told us that staff were “brilliant”, “wonderful”, and the “care is lovely”. They went on to tell us that staff supported them to live as they wanted. Staff were kind and caring, they involved people in their care and made sure people’s privacy was respected. Staff worked well together, they understood the agency’s aim to deliver high quality care, which helped people to continue to live in their own homes.

Systems to monitor how well the agency was operating were carried out well. Where concerns were identified, the registered manager followed this up to make sure action was taken to rectify the issue.

We have made recommendations about information about long term health conditions and around staff recruitment checks.

Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement. (Previous report published March 2018)

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 scheduled in our re-inspection programme. 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