Background to this inspection
Updated
16 April 2016
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the registered 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.
This inspection took place on 19, 20, 25, 26 January 2016 and was announced. The registered provider was given 24 hours’ notice because the location provides a small domiciliary care service; we needed to be sure that someone would be in.
The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector. During our inspection we spoke to seven people who used the service, four relatives and three professionals. We spoke with the registered manager who was also the registered provider, three team leaders and five staff.
We reviewed five people’s care records including care plans, risk assessments, and health records. We also carried out observations of people and their interactions with staff.
Prior to the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. No concerns had been raised with us about the service by the local authority safeguarding team or commissioning teams. We also contacted the local Healthwatch and no concerns had been raised with them about the service. Healthwatch is the local consumer champion for health and social care services. They gave consumers a voice by collecting their views, concerns and compliments through their engagement work.
Before the inspection, the registered provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used the content of the PIR to inform our inspection and to ask questions of the registered provider.
Updated
16 April 2016
This inspection took place on 19, 20, 25, 26 January 2016 and was announced.
The service had not previously been inspected.
The service provides personal care to people in their own homes. This includes providing support to a group of people with learning difficulties in their own flats where they can live independently overnight, providing 24 hour support to people living on their own and support to people who require daily support through regular visits by staff to their homes. The service at the time of our inspection provided support to 17 people.
There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. At this service, the registered manager and the registered provider are the same person.
We found staff underwent a number of checks before they were allowed to start working in the service so that people were protected against the risk of unsuitable people caring for them.
Risks in the service and to individual people had been identified and actions put in place to mitigate risks. Staff had been allocated responsibility to ensure the risks were managed and up to date.
The registered provider maintained a record of accidents and reviewed the accidents to look for patterns or trends where action could be taken to prevent a re-occurrence.
People had been assessed to check if they were able to administer their own medicines. Plans had been put in place to ensure people were given the required support to take their medicines according to their individual needs.
We found staff knew about people’s backgrounds and were familiar with their likes and dislikes. They enabled people to participate in the inspection, for example they explained to people what the inspector was doing whilst asking other people if they would like to speak to us.
We found choice was a key component of the service. Staff interacted with people in a manner that gave people choices and proactively looked for choices for people.
The service had responded to the needs and wishes of people in relation to their preferred activities. We saw the staff rota had been arranged so staff could accommodate people’s outings. This meant the registered provider put the needs of people first and their needs were being met by a registered provider who saw them as the priority.
The registered provider had introduced a quarterly review so people were involved to review the positive aspects of their lives and the things they had achieved. People showed us they were happy about these reviews.
We saw the registered manager had offered and provided support to improve people’s living conditions to offer more independence by going the extra mile and applying for grants.
The registered manager was aware of national initiatives to improve services and had reviewed the service in line with the initiatives. They demonstrated the service was meeting the initiatives and wanted to continuously improve the service.
The registered manager attended the local disability forum where local initiatives had been discussed. These had been passed onto the service staff and included to improve the service.
We found the service had conducted a quality audit and the registered manager had responded to the feedback. People were able to tell us how the registered manager had responded to the feedback.