Care24Seven

Updated 11 June 2021

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by one inspector and an Expert by Experience undertook telephone interviews with people and relatives. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

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

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 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the registered manager was often out supporting people, and we needed to be sure that they or the provider would be in the office to support the inspection. We visited the office location on 27 May 2021.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

During the inspection

We spoke with five people who used the service and eight relatives of other people about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the director, care coordinator, operations manager and registered manager.

We reviewed a range of records. This included six people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at five 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 feedback by email from eight care workers. We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at training data and quality assurance records.

Updated 11 June 2021

About the service

Care24Seven is a domiciliary care agency providing a range of services including personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, there were 36 people using the service.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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

Incidents and accidents were recorded appropriately, and appropriate action taken, but records did not always include an analysis or evidence of lessons learned. However, the provider was transparent and there was clear communication within the team, so they learnt from mistakes and made improvements when things went wrong.

People's care and risk management plans set out the care tasks they required help with and these contained information about people and their preferences for how they liked to be supported.

People told us they felt safe. Where there were risks to people’s safety and wellbeing, these had been assessed and the provider had done all that was reasonably practicable to lessen those risks.

There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and recognise when improvements were required.

We received positive feedback from people and their relatives about using the service. Staff sometimes provided extra support and assistance to people when this was not part of people's contractual care arrangements.

The provider made sure there were enough staff deployed to support people and staff usually arrived at people’s homes on time. Staff received induction, training and supervision and felt supported in their roles.

The provider sought feedback from people, relatives and staff and used this to develop the service. People and staff were confident they could raise any concerns they had with the registered manager and felt they would be listened to.

The registered manager and senior staff were responsive to and worked in partnership with other agencies to meet people’s needs.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 11 March 2020) and there were multiple breaches of regulation. Since this rating was awarded the service has moved premises. We have used the previous rating to inform our planning and decisions about the rating at this inspection.

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We received anonymous concerns in relation to the standard of care people received. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective, responsive and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key question. We therefore did not inspect this. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for this key question were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care24Seven on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.