Background to this inspection
Updated
13 April 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.
Service and service type:
Reed is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. Reed provides a service to children and adults across Greater Manchester and Warrington.
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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be available.
Inspection site visit activity started on 12 March 2019 and ended on 13 March 2019. We visited the office location on 12 March 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. On 13 March we visited, with their permission, one person who used the service and one relative. We also spoke with one member of staff.
What we did:
We reviewed information we held about the service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as accidents or abuse. We reviewed the information the provider had sent us in their provider information return (PIR). The PIR gives some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
We contacted the local authority commissioning and safeguarding teams. No concerns were raised about the service provided by Reed.
We looked at a range of records, including four care plans and two medicines records. We also reviewed three staff recruitment files, training and quality assurance and other records in relation to the management of the service.
On the first day of our inspection we spoke with two relatives by telephone, a care coordinator, the registered manager and national quality assurance manager. Following the inspection, we spoke by telephone with three more members of staff. Therefore in total we captured the views of one person who received support, three relatives and four members of staff.
Updated
13 April 2019
About the service:
¿ Reed Specialist Recruitment Ltd - Community Care - Manchester (known as Reed) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. Reed provides a service to children and adults across Greater Manchester and Warrington.
¿ Not everyone using Reed 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.
¿ At the time of our inspection Reed was supporting 25 people in total, but only 12 of these people received a regulated activity. Our judgements are based on our findings relating to the 12 people in receipt of personal care support.
People’s experience of using this service:
¿ People and their relatives were positive about the support provided by Reed. They said the staff knew people’s needs well and knew how to maintain their privacy and dignity.
¿ Staff had the training and support to undertake their role. This included specific training, such as epilepsy training, to meet individual’s needs.
¿ The support people required was assessed and reviewed regularly. Risks were identified and guidance provided for staff to manage these known risks.
¿ Care plans detailed the support to be provided by the members of Reed staff and what they were to do at each visit.
¿ Staff were trained in medicines administration. Care plans stated if staff or people’s family were responsible for administering the medicines. Relatives said that people received their medicines as prescribed. One care plan we saw had not been updated to indicate that staff administered one medicine. The staff recorded when medicines had been administered.
¿ A quality assurance system was in place. Matrices were used to monitor care plan reviews, staff training and supervision, incidents and complaints.
¿ Incidents were monitored and reviewed to identify if there were any patterns and to reduce the risk of further incidents occurring.
¿ The national quality assurance manager completed quarterly audits and the Reed central quality department audited the service every six months. The results of these were seen to be positive. Action plans were written to address any issues that had been found.
¿ Staff said they enjoyed working at the service and felt well supported by the registered manager and care co-ordinators.
¿ Staff were safely recruited.
¿ There was a formal complaints policy in place. Any complaints received had been responded to appropriately.
Rating at last inspection: Good; report published 12 October 2016.
Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.
Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk