Updated 23 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:
Due to the size of the service, the office visit was carried out by one inspector. Three other inspectors carried out telephone interviews with people and relatives.
Service and service type: Alina Homecare Horley, is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The agency can also provide live-in or live out carers to older adults, younger adults, people with a physical disability or a sensory impairment. At the time of our inspection, the agency was providing live-out care to 20 people who were either living with dementia or elderly and frail.
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 due to the size of the service 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 25 April 2019 and ended on 26 April 2019. We visited the office location on 26 April 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
Before this inspection we reviewed all the information we held about the service, including data about safeguarding and statutory notifications. Statutory notifications are information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. This enabled us to ensure we were addressing potential areas of concern at our inspection.
As part of our inspection, we spoke with two people, two relatives and three staff. We also spoke with the registered manager, the provider’s area manager and the provider’s quality lead. We also liaised with the local commissioning authority to obtain their feedback.
We reviewed a range of documents about people’s care and how the service was managed. This included looking at five care plans, medicine administration records, risk assessments, three staff recruitment files, complaints records, compliments, surveys and policies and procedures as well as internal audits that had been completed.