Archived: Sycamore Care Services

Sycamore Care Services is a domiciliary care service. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats within Cambridgeshire and Wisbech.

The service was supporting nine people at the time of 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

Information relating to people’s individual risks were not always recorded or provided enough assurance that people were safe. Suitable arrangements were not in place to ensure the proper and safe use of medicines. People were often not informed if staff were running late and call preferences were not always followed. Required recruitment checks on staff were not robust to ensure staff were suitable. Lessons were not learned, and improvements were not made when things went wrong. People were protected by the prevention and control of infection.

Not all staff, including the provider and director’s training was up to date. Staff’s competence to carry out their role and responsibility had not been assessed. Robust induction arrangements for staff were not in place. There was no evidence to demonstrate staff had received spot check visits. People were supported as needed with meal and drink provision to ensure their nutritional and hydration needs were met, however improvements were required at weekends. People received ongoing healthcare support to ensure positive outcomes. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Though people using the service and their relatives said staff were caring and kind, our findings did not suggest a consistent caring service or a service that was always respectful and treated people with dignity. People and their relatives stated they had little input and involvement in the development of the care plan. People were able to maintain their independence where appropriate.

Care plans were not detailed. People and those acting on their behalf knew how to raise a concern or complaint. However, complaints were not recorded to evidence the provider was following their policy and procedure.

The leadership, management and governance arrangements did not provide assurance that the service was well-led, that people were safe, and their care and support needs could be met. Quality assurance and governance arrangements at the service were not reliable or effective in identifying shortfalls in the service. There was a lack of understanding of the risks and issues and the potential impact on people using the service. The provider was not familiar with regulatory requirements.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

We will meet with the provider and request an action plan to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider, Local Authority and CCG to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within six months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe. And there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions of their registration.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.

This service was registered with us on 4 September 2017 and this is the first inspection.

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