Archived: Olive Care Limited

Updated 13 July 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 completed by an inspector, an assistant 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:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults; some of whom are living with dementia.

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 over 48 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 28 May 2019 and ended on 03 June 2019. We visited the office location on 30 May 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

As part of the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked to see if statutory notifications had been sent by the provider. A statutory notification contains information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We reviewed information that had been sent to us by the public. We used this information to help us plan our inspection.

During the inspection we spoke with two of the three people who used the service. We spoke with the provider who was also the registered manager and five of the six staff members the provider informed us were employed at the time of the inspection. We reviewed records relating to three people’s care records, their medicines and records relating to the management of the service; including staff recruitment records, complaints and quality assurance records. We also reviewed information about a serious safeguarding incident relating to two staff member’s being convicted of theft from a person who had been using the service.

Updated 13 July 2019

About the service: Olive Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection the service provided support to three older people.

People’s experience of using this service:

People were not protected from the risk of abuse due to the provider’s failure to develop robust safeguarding systems. People were also not protected from the risk of harm due to inadequate risk management systems. People did not always receive their medicines as prescribed.

People were supported by sufficient numbers of care staff. However, the timing of care visits was not consistent. Care staff were not always recruited safely. The provider had not ensured that checks such as references and checks on staff member’s criminal history were in place prior to staff supporting people.

People were not supported by a staff team who had the skills and knowledge to support people safely. People’s right’s were not always upheld by the effective use of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. People’s nutritional needs were not always fully understood and met safely. People were not supported to maintain their health needs.

People were supported by a staff team who they had a good rapport with and felt were concerned about their needs. Care staff were keen to support people in a caring way but had not been given the skills and knowledge required to identify when care practices were not caring and dignified.

People did not always receive care and support that was personalised to their needs and planned in line with current legislation and guidance.

People felt they could raise complaints however we found concerns about the timing of care visits had not been addressed.

People were not supported by a service with effective management and governance systems in place. The provider had not ensured that areas of improvement required and risks to people were identified. Where concerns had been raised by third party organisations, the provider had failed to take proactive action to ensure improvements were made. The provider’s failure to identify areas of concern and to make appropriate improvements exposed people to the ongoing risk of avoidable harm.

Rating at last inspection: This was the first inspection of this service since it was registered with CQC on 01 June 2018.

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the registration date of the service.

Enforcement: Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found in inspections and appeals is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up: Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if we have not taken immediate action to propose to cancel the provider’s registration of the service, will be inspected again within six months. The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe.

If not enough improvement is made within this timeframe so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk