Archived: Excite Care LTD

Updated 1 July 2016

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 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.

The inspection visit took place on 26 May 2016 and was announced. This service was inspected by one inspector. The provider was given two days’ notice of our inspection because the agency provides care to people in their own homes. The notice period gave the manager time to arrange for us to speak with them and staff who worked for the agency.

We reviewed information received about the service, for example the statutory notifications the service had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We also contacted the local authority commissioners to find out their views of the service. These are people who contract care and support services paid for by the local authority.

We contacted people who used the service and their relatives to obtain their views of the service they received. We spoke by telephone with seven people and two relatives of people who used the service.

During our inspection visit we spoke with a trainer, the registered manager and one member of care staff. Following our inspection visit we spoke with one member of care staff and contacted 17 care staff via email to gather their feedback about the service, we received six responses.

We reviewed four people’s care records to see how their care and support was planned and delivered. We checked whether staff had been recruited safely and were trained to deliver the care and support people required. We looked at other records related to people’s care and how the service operated including the service’s quality assurance audits and records of complaints.

Updated 1 July 2016

This inspection visit took place on 26 May 2016 and was announced. The provider was given two days’ notice of our inspection visit to ensure the manager and care staff were available when we visited the agency’s office.

The service was last inspected in March 2014 when we found the provider was compliant with the essential standards described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010.

Excite Care is a domiciliary care agency providing care for people in their own homes. Most people who used the service received support through several visits each day. On the day of our inspection the agency was providing support to 63 people with 29 members of care staff.

The service had a registered manager. 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. We refer to the registered manager as the manager in the body of this report.

People felt safe using the service and there were processes to minimise risks to people’s safety. These included procedures to manage identified risks with people’s care and for managing people’s medicines safely. Care staff understood how to protect people from abuse and keep people safe. The character and suitability of care staff was checked during recruitment procedures to make sure, as far as possible, they were safe to work with people who used the service.

There were enough care staff to deliver the care and support people required. Most people said care staff arrived around the time expected and stayed long enough to complete the care people required. People told us care staff were caring, kind and knew how people liked to receive their care.

Care staff received an induction when they started working for the service and completed regular training to support them in meeting people’s needs effectively. People told us care staff had the right skills to provide the care and support they required. Support plans and risk assessments contained relevant information for staff to help them provide the care people needed in a way they preferred.

Staff were supported by managers through regular meetings. There was an out of hours’ on call system in operation, which ensured management support and advice was always available for staff during their working hours. The manager understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA), care staff respected people’s decisions and gained people’s consent before they provided personal care.

Staff, people and their relatives felt the manager was approachable. People knew how to complain and information about making a complaint was available for people. Care staff said they could raise any concerns or issues with the managers. Communication was encouraged and identified concerns were acted upon by the manager and provider. The provider monitored complaints and made changes to the service in response to complaints.

There were systems to monitor and review the quality of service people received and to understand the experiences of people who used the service. This was through regular communication with people and staff, spot checks on care staff and a programme of other checks and audits. Where issues had been identified, the provider acted to make improvements.