Bluewood Care Limited

Updated 7 March 2024

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

The inspection team consisted of 2 inspectors and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ 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.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since they registered with CQC and sought feedback for the local Integrated Care Board (ICB) who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We also used information gathered as part of our direct monitoring activity that took place on 20 July 2023 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements.

During the inspection

We spoke with 4 people who used the service and 2 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 7 staff including the registered manager, care co-ordinator, and care staff.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 5 people’s care plans, medicine records, and risk management records. We looked at 7 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff support, and a range of quality monitoring records related to how the service operated and was managed.

Updated 7 March 2024

About the service

Bluewood Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to older people and younger people with a range of needs. This includes people with physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection the service supported 6 people, some of those people, received 24-hour care and support.

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

The quality and safety of the service had deteriorated since our last inspection. Medicines were not managed safely in line with the provider’s policy and best practice guidance. Risks associated with people’s care were not always identified, assessed, or well managed.

Quality assurance systems and processes were ineffective, as they failed to identify the issues we had found, such as there was no guidance for staff to follow when administering emergency medicines to people. Opportunities to learn lessons had been missed.

Care records did not include an assessment of people’s needs and choices to ensure staff knew how people wished to be supported. Improvements were needed in the quality of training staff had received to ensure staff supported people safely.

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice. We made a recommendation to the provider regarding improvements to be made to ensure they were working within the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Staff understood their responsibilities to keep people safe and protect from harm. Staff were recruited safely and there were sufficient staff to provide people’s care and support.

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 August 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted due to concerns received in relation to the quality of care and the safety of people using the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective and well led. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe, effective and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to people’s safety and the governance of the service at this 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.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.