Home Instead Senior Care

Updated 24 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.

The inspection was brought forward because we had received concerns that staff were not being safely recruited and were not being sufficiently trained when they were new in post.

Inspection team:

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors.

Service and service type:

Home Instead Senior Care is a domiciliary care agency. The registered manager had left the service approximately two weeks before our inspection visit. 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. A new manager had been appointed. They had not yet commenced the registration process to become the registered manager with the CQC.

Notice of inspection:

The inspection was unannounced, so the provider, manager and staff team did not know we would be visiting. Inspection site visit activity started on 13 March 2019 and ended on 15 March 2019. We visited the office location on 13 March 2019.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service and the service provider. We also looked at the notifications we had received for this service. Notifications are information about important events the service is required to send us by law.

During the visit to the office location we met with the managing director, the manager, the office manager, a rota scheduler and care coordinator.

We reviewed records that included three care plans, daily activity records and medicines records. We checked five staff recruitment files, staff induction, supervision and training records. We also looked at records relating to the management and monitoring of the service. These included audits and quality assurance surveys.

We spoke on the telephone with three people who used the service, five relatives and eight caregivers, to help form our judgements.

After the inspection we received further information we had requested relating to staff recruitment and the monitoring and management of the service.

Updated 24 April 2019

About the service:

Home Instead Senior Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care for people living in their own homes in and around the Bristol area. At the time of our inspection 60 older people were receiving a personal care service.

What life is like for people using this service:

On the day of inspection, we identified that staff were not always safely recruited. Sufficient checks were not always completed before staff started in post. However, actions were taken to address the shortfalls, before the end of the inspection process.

People received personal care from staff who were trained and sufficiently supported in their roles.

People told us they were cared for by ‘lovely’ staff who were punctual and spent sufficient time with them to make sure personal care needs were met. Improvements had been made and when people required support to take medicines, records were accurately maintained.

Quality assurance systems were in place, and improvements had been made to the auditing and monitoring of medicines.

The service met the characteristics of Good in the safe key question and remained Requires Improvement in the well-led key question. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection has improved to Good.

More information is in detailed findings below.

Rating at last inspection:

Requires Improvement (report published in October 2018).

Why we inspected:

The focused inspection was undertaken because we had received concerns that staff were not safely recruited, insufficient checks were carried out before staff started in post and staff were not being sufficiently trained when they were new in post.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor information received about the service to inform the assessment of the risk profile of the service and to ensure the next planned inspection is scheduled accordingly.