Archived: 1 Diamond Home Care Ltd

Updated 1 September 2018

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.

This was a focused inspection. The inspection took place on 14 August 2018. One adult social care inspector carried out this inspection.

We visited the office location and met with the registered provider. We asked the registered provider to seek the two services user’s permission to go to their homes to collect their care records so these could be checked at the office. We collected one care record and a care coordinator collected the other.

We also looked at the training and recruitment records for the registered provider, the five care workers who provided personal care and one newly recruited care worker who was carrying out their induction. We also spoke with the registered providers training officer and looked at a sample of audits completed by the quality assurance officer.

We looked at the information received about the service from notifications sent to the Care Quality Commission and spoke with the local authority commissioners, contracts officers and safeguarding.

Updated 1 September 2018

We undertook an unannounced focused inspection of 1 Diamond Home Care Ltd on 14 August 2018. This meant people using the service, the staff and the registered provider didn’t know we were visiting. 1 Diamond Home Care Ltd is a domiciliary care service that provides personal care to people living in their own houses in the community. It provides a service to older adults in the Doncaster area. At the time of our inspection the service was supporting two adults with their personal care needs.

We carried out the inspection because we had received information that said staff providing personal care to people had not had the required pre-employment checks completed. These included Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) checks and references. We were also told staff had not received the relevant training to carry out their role.

Our last inspection of 1 Diamond Home Care Ltd was on the 25 June 2018. This inspection was the first inspection since they re-registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in May 2017. Prior to this they were registered at another location. At the previous location when we inspected the service we rated it inadequate and took enforcement action. This resulted in time limited conditions being applied to the registration to restrict admissions. The registered provider was also required to seek our approval prior to offering people a care package.

Up until May 2018 the service remained dormant, which meant they were not providing any care or support to people. During dormancy the registered provider recruited an external consultant to put in place a range of new policies and procedures and introduce management systems. The previous registered manager was also employed as the quality assurance officer whose role was to identify and make the necessary improvements so that people would receive good quality care that met their needs. This was to ensure the service would be operationally ready to commence providing an improved service.

At this inspection we inspected the service against two of the five questions we ask about services: is the service safe and is the service well led. As we had recently inspected the service we only looked at the elements of these questions relating to the concerns raised.

At our inspection on 25 June 2018 we rated the service overall ‘good’ with the ‘well led’ domain rated as ‘requires improvement.’ This was because the service had only been operating for a short time it was not possible to fully assess if the systems in place to learn, improve and ensure sustainability were fully effective. Information seen on the day of the inspection showed there were governance and accountability arrangements in place and staff were keen to learn and improve. However, as the service grows these systems needed to be well embedded into the running of the service so that they captured and managed organisational issues and risks. The registered provider told us they planned to increase the business slowly and safely so the systems in place could be monitored and where necessary reviewed in a timely manner.

At this inspection the rating for the service continues to be rated ‘Good’ and we found no evidence to collaborate the concerns raised with us. The registered provider had a policy and procedure for the safe recruitment of staff. We looked at six staff files and found checks had been carried out, prior to people being offered posts. Staff had completed a programme of training and were trained to care and support people who used the service safely.

We saw evidence that the registered provider had improved auditing and monitoring systems. For example, a computer system was in place to record and update many aspects of the service for example, staff training, staff rotas and quality assurance checks.

The service did not have 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. The registered provider told us following our last inspection they had interviewed and recruited a manager. However, due to unforeseen circumstances the applicant had been unable to commence work. The registered provider had arranged to interview another applicant on 17 August 2018

You can read the report from our last inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘1 Diamond Home Care Ltd’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.