Updated 30 May 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector and one 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; in this case they had experience of older people and people living with mental health issues.
Service and service type:
141 Whitworth Road is a domiciliary care agency and provides personal care to people in their own homes.
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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 21 March 2019 and ended on 27 March 2019. We visited the office location on 21 and 27 March 2019 to see the registered manager and to review care records and policies and procedures. We made calls to people using the service and relatives on 21 March 2019 and visited five people in their own homes on 26 March 2019.
What we did:
Before this inspection we reviewed information we held about the service. The registered manager had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR 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.
Before the inspection visit we contacted the local authority safeguarding and commissioning teams about the service to gather relevant information. We also contacted Healthwatch Rochdale. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. No concerns were raised about the service.
During the inspection we spoke with eleven people who used the service, five relatives, five care staff, the registered manager, the director and the nominated individual. A nominated individual has responsibility for supervising the way that the regulated activity is managed.
We looked at records relating to the management of the service. This included policies and procedures, incident and accident records, safeguarding records, complaint records, five staff recruitment files, training and supervision records, eight care plans, satisfaction surveys and a range of auditing tools and systems and other documents related to the management and safety of the service.