Updated 16 January 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: This consisted of two inspectors, three experts by experience and a Bengali interpreter. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service. They were responsible for contacting people during the inspection to find out about their experiences of using the service. A Bengali interpreter was required because a large number of people using the service and their relatives could communicate more effectively in their native language.
Service and service type: Home and Community Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults and children. At the time of the inspection they were supporting 380 people in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Not everyone using Home and Community Services receives 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: We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice because we needed to ensure somebody would be available to assist us with the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 4 December and ended on 21 December 2018. We visited the office location on 4, 5, 6 and 11 December to see the registered manager, office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures. A Bengali interpreter made calls to people and their relatives on 7 December 2018.
What we did when preparing and carrying out this inspection:
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as allegations of abuse. We reviewed their provider information return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also spoke with the local authority commissioning and contract monitoring teams. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection, we called 110 people using the service and managed to speak with 27 of them. As not everybody we called was able to communicate over the phone, we spoke with 37 relatives. We also spoke with 22 staff members, which included the registered manager, the team manager, the training and development manager, the training and development coordinator, two care coordinators, a field care supervisor and 15 care workers.
We reviewed a range of records. This included 15 people’s care plans, 15 staff recruitment files, staff training files, staff supervision records, audits and records related to the management of the service. We also looked at a variety of policies and procedures developed and implemented by the provider.
Following the site visit we contacted seven health and social care professionals who work with people using the service for their views and feedback and heard back from five of them.