Updated 12 April 2019
The inspection: We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team: This inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector 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 service.
Service and service type: Harbour Home Care is a domiciliary care service. Staff deliver personal care support to people living in their own homes and support people to access community services from their residential care settings. The service is registered to provide services to both younger and older people who have learning or physical disabilities, people who are living with dementia and people who have sensory impairments and/or physical disabilities.
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 visit because it is a domiciliary service and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be available to speak with us. We also needed to ensure that people’s consent was gained for us to contact them for feedback about the service.
We visited the service on the 1 March 2019 and looked at records. We visited one person in their own home. Following the visit, we spoke with eight people over the telephone who used the service and gained feedback through emails from three staff members.
What we did: The provider had not received the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed other information that we held about the service such as notifications. These are events that happen in the service that the provider is required to tell us about.
We looked at the care and medicine records of two people who used the service. We also examined records in relation to the management of the service including two staff recruitment files, quality assurance checks, staff training and supervision records, safe guarding information and accidents and incident information.