During an assessment under our new approach
Date of inspection: 2 July to 17 July 2025. Merit Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency supporting people living in their own homes. Not everyone using the service received a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of this assessment, 48 people were receiving personal care from the service. We carried out an onsite and offsite responsive assessment of the service due to emerging risk and the age of our last assessment. We found 2 breaches of the legal regulations in relation to the management of people’s medicines and staff recruitment processes.
Detailed information of the management and administration of people’s medicines were not explicitly recorded. This meant staff did not have accurate information about people’s medicines which may lead to incorrect administration of people’s medicines. Whilst the provider carried out employment and criminal checks on staff; they did not routinely check the health of staff and the reason for leaving and gaps in their employment to determine the conduct of staff.
People were supported by regular staff who were reliable and provided personalised care. Care plans and risk assessments were in place to guide staff on how best to support people and their needs. However, the measures needed to mitigate people's risks were not always consistently documented. Concerns and incidents were investigated, and actions were taken and monitored to mitigate future risks.
Staff respected people’s choices and understood how to obtain consent; however, the provider had not always considered how they lawfully documented people’s consent to care, particularly when assessing and delivering care to people who live with a cognitive impairment.
Staff told us they were treated fairly and felt supported, and their views were valued and acted on.
Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service being provided and staff development. However, some of the providers monitoring systems needed to be enhanced to ensure the service was compliant.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.