We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by one inspector, an assistant inspector and an Expert by Experience. 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 assistant inspector made telephone calls to staff and the Expert by Experience made calls to people and relatives.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

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 service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 09 September 2019 when we made telephone calls to people and their relatives and ended on 29 October 2019. We visited the office location on 29 October 2019.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We reviewed the information we held about the service including previous inspection reports. We also looked at notifications about important events that had taken place in the service, which the provider is required to tell us by law.

We contacted health and social care professionals to obtain feedback about their experience of the service. These professionals included local authority commissioners and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. Healthwatch told us they had not been to the service since we last inspected and had not received any information about the service. We received feedback from a local authority social worker. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who used the service and six relatives about their experience of the care provided.

We spoke with 12 staff including; care workers, live in care workers coordinators, the deputy manager, the registered manager and the nominated individual for the provider. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records. This included five people’s care records and multiple medicines records. We looked at three staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the registered manager to validate evidence found. We looked at training data and quality monitoring documents.