Updated 23 March 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 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 care service.
Service and service type:
RV Care is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. The service is based on the Roseland Park site which includes privately owned homes, a residential care unit, a dementia unit and a nursing care unit. There is a restaurant, swimming pool, hairdresser, library and GP based on the same site.
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. However, the registered manager had been away from work for a few months prior to this inspection and was not expected back in the near future. The provider was supporting an acting manager to provide management tasks at the time of this inspection.
Notice of inspection:
This inspection was announced. We gave the service 36 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because the location was a small agency and staff were often out of the office during the day. We needed to be sure that they would be in at the time of our visit.
What we did:
Before the inspection, the provider completed a 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. The provider returned the PIR and we took this into account when we made judgements in this report. 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 also considered information that had been sent to us by other agencies.
Prior to the office visit, we spoke with eight people and six relatives over the telephone. We visited the service on the 1 March 2019 and looked at records, spoke with people and staff.
During the inspection, we spoke with two staff, the acting manager, and a representative of the provider. We visited two people in their own homes to seek their views of the service provided by RV Care. We received feedback from a team of health care professional who worked with the care staff. Following the inspection, we spoke with two more care staff.
We looked at the care and medication records of three people who used the service. We also examined records in relation to the management of the service such as staff recruitment files, quality assurance checks, staff training and supervision records, safe guarding information and accidents and incident information.