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Archived: Ambley Care

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit 5, Rochester Trade Park, Rochester Airport Industrial Estate, Maidstone Road, Rochester, ME1 3QY (01634) 335593

Provided and run by:
Ambley Care Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 25 May 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:

¿ The inspection was carried out by one inspector and two experts-by-experience, who made calls to people using the service. 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 experts-by-experience for this inspection had experience of people cared for in their homes.

Service and service type:

¿ Ambley Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care for people who require support in their own home. Ambley Care Limited was established in July 2016 to provide personal care and enablement to residents of Medway aged over 18. They provide enabling services to assist people to regain independence. This could be after discharge from hospital to home or within community rehabilitation units. Services are provided for a short time period of six weeks. However, in some instances, the service provided had lasted more than six weeks.

¿ There was a new manager currently undergoing registration with the Care Quality Commission. As the manager is not yet registered, this means that the provider is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

¿ This was a comprehensive inspection, which took place on 16, 17 and 18 April 2019 and was announced. The provider was given 72 hours' notice of the inspection as we needed to be sure that the office was open, staff would be available to speak with us and people being enabled would be able to speak with us.

What we did:

¿ We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection on 03 April 2018. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse or when a person dies. The provider completed a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information including the information in our last inspection report to plan our inspection. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

¿ During the inspection, we spoke with 20 people using the service, three relatives, two enablers [Care staff] and two supervisors. As part of the inspection, we also spoke with the management of Ambley Care, which included the nominated individual who was also a director, the head of service for Ambley Care and the director.

¿ We requested feedback from a range of healthcare professionals involved in the service. We received feedback from a local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) commissioner.

¿ We reviewed a range of records. This included four people's care records and medicines records. We also looked at four staff files including their recruitment, supervision and training records. We reviewed records relating to the management of the service and a variety of policies and procedures implemented by the provider. We also looked at other records the provider kept, such as meetings with people and surveys they completed to share their views.

¿ We asked the head of service to send additional information after the inspection visit. This included the updated CQC action plan, local authority quality assurance team visit report and the staffing rota. The information we requested was sent to us in a timely manner.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 25 May 2019

About the service:

¿ Ambley Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care for people who require support in their own home. Ambley Care Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary company of Medway Community Healthcare (MCH) C.I.C.

¿ Not everyone using Ambley Care Limited receives 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. At the time of our inspection, they were supporting 47 people who received support with personal care tasks.

People’s experience of using this service:

¿ The service had improved since we last inspected it. Everyone we spoke with was positive in their feedback. Comments included; “I had a massive operation and they’ve been great”; “I feel very safe, and I have lifeline” and “I feel safe, I haven’t seen or heard anything, but I would feel confident to raise any issues.”

¿ Care plans contained risk assessments, which was appropriately linked to their support needs.

¿ Processes were in place to identify and reduce any environmental risks to people and care workers.

¿ The service was working according to the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) and its requirements during our inspection. This meant that people were able to communicate effectively with care workers or understand what was going on and involved in decision-making.

¿ People’s needs were assessed prior to receiving a service including the protected characteristics under the Equalities Act.

¿ Staff were skilled in carrying out their role. Trained staff were employed to meet people’s needs. Staff said they were supported by the manager.

¿ People were encouraged to raise any concerns they had or make suggestions to improve the service they received. One person said, “When I had that complaint, I did not call the office, but I told the carer who came the following night. She contacted the office, and someone rang me, and I explained my complaint. The office acted on it immediately and resolved my complaint.”

¿ Staff felt there was an open culture where they were kept informed about any changes to their role. Staff told us the manager was approachable and listened to their ideas and suggestions.

¿ The service had effective systems in place to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the services provided.

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

Rating at last inspection:

¿ Requires Improvement (Report published 23 May 2018).

Why we inspected:

¿ At our last inspection on 03 April 2018, we found five breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. These breaches were in relation to our findings, that the provider failed to carry out, collaboratively with the relevant person, an assessment of the needs and preferences for care and treatment of the people who used the service. Further, the provider failed to act in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act (2005), people's capacity to consent to care and support had not been assessed and recorded within their care plans. The provider also failed to assess the risks to the health and safety of service users receiving the care or treatment. The provider had also failed to operate effective quality monitoring systems and failed to provide appropriate support, professional development and supervision as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform.

¿ We asked the registered provider to take action to meet the regulations. We received an action plan, which stated that the registered provider would take action to meet the regulations by July 2018. The action plan was continually updated up until 22 March 2019.

¿ At this inspection, we found that improvements had been made in relation to the requirements made above.

Follow up:

¿ We will continue to monitor the service through the information we receive. We will carry out another scheduled inspection to make sure the service continues to maintain a Good rating.