This inspection took place on 10 and 23 December 2015. The inspection was unannounced.
The Support and Independence Team Upper Valley 1 is a domiciliary care agency and helps people regain their independence following periods of illness or time in hospital. The service's office base is situated in Beechwood Health Centre. Referrals to the service are usually from the community, Gateway to Care or following hospital discharge.
A registered manager was not in place with the previous manager deregistering with the commission in February 2015. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. A manager had put in an application to become the registered manager in January 2015 however this application had been returned due to being incorrectly filled out. Since then, satisfactory steps had not been taken to ensure a registered manager was in place.
People had care records in place. However care records contained minimal personalised information and documentation was sometimes duplicated.
People did not always have risk assessments documentation in place for areas of identified risk.
Before people started using the service they were assessed by the team leader or the deputy team leader. This assessment identified peoples support needs effectively.
People’s support needs were reviewed on a weekly basis. This review identified any changes and information on changes was passed onto staff.
People told us they felt safe around staff who appeared competent and trained. People said staff were polite and patient and respected their dignity.
Staffing levels of the service were sufficient to keep people safe. When there was short term vacancies, staff in the team would take additional work or they would be supported from another Support and Independence team.
Staff were recruited in a safe way. Appropriate background checks had been completed on all staff to make sure they were of suitable character.
Staff told us about people and their needs. Staffs knowledge of people was detailed and this was evidenced in daily recordings. People told us staff were familiar and knew them well.
People told us they were encouraged to do things for themselves. Staff said they promoted people’s independence on each visit. This was evidenced in people’s daily recordings.
Staff received training on a regular basis to maintain their skills. Specific courses were accessed to enable people to be supported more effectively.
The support and Independence team worked closely with a number of different health professionals. We saw evidence of Occupational Therapists, Speech And Language Therapists and nurses involved in peoples care.
The service had a complaints policy in place. People were aware how to complain. We reviewed complaints and found they had been actioned in line with the provider’s policy.
The service worked in line with and staff had knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA).
The manager told us various audits were completed by themselves and the team leader. A new audit for medicines was present but had not been used yet. Other audits looked at the quality of the service.
We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full report.