Direct Source Healthcare Ltd

Updated 12 April 2022

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. 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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses. At the time of our inspection the service was not providing personal care to people with a learning disability.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service prior notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 24 March 2022 and ended on 29 March 2022. We visited the location’s office on 24 March 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection

We spoke with five members of staff including the registered manager who is also the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke with the administration officer and three care workers. We spoke with one person who used the service about their experience of the care provided.

We reviewed a range of records. This included two people’s care records and medication 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 received comments from a commissioner of services.

Updated 12 April 2022

Direct Source Healthcare Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to two people at the time of our inspection. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We found all required staff recruitment checks had not been completed on staff, before they delivered people's care. We made a recommendation to support good recruitment practice.

People were protected from harm and abuse through the knowledge of staff and management. Risks to people's safety were identified, assessed and appropriate action was taken to keep people safe. Staff followed infection control procedures to protect people. People's medicines were safely managed.

Quality assurance systems were in operation with the aim of improving the service in response to people's needs. The registered manager and senior staff were visible and approachable for people using the service, their representatives and staff.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 16 September 2020)

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staff recruitment as a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe section of this full report.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. The provider agreed to make improvements to their staff recruitment procedures.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Direct Source Healthcare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Recommendations

We made a recommendation about staff recruitment processes.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.