Dovecare Services Limited

Updated 21 January 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 2 working days’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider who was also the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection. Inspection activity started on 6 December 2022 and ended on 3 January 2023. We visited the location’s office on 6 December.

What we did before the inspection

We did not ask the provider to send us a Provider Information Return prior to this inspection. 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. However, we offered the registered manager the opportunity to share information they felt relevant with us at this inspection.

The inspection was informed by other information we had received from and about the service. This included feedback from commissioners and notifications from the provider. A notification is information about important events, which the provider is required to send us by law. We used information gathered as part of monitoring activity that took place in October 2022 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We received feedback from the person using the service. We looked at this person’s care records to check that the care they received matched the information in their records. We reviewed 4 staff files to see how staff were recruited and looked at training records. We looked at the systems the provider had in place to ensure the quality of the service was continuously monitored and reviewed to drive improvement. We also received feedback from 1 member of staff that worked at the service and the registered manager.

Updated 21 January 2023

About the service

Dovecare Limited is a domiciliary care service providing care to people living in their own homes in the Derby City area. At the time of our inspection 2 people were using the service. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection one person was receiving personal care support.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Systems and processes did not fully support people’s safety as risk assessments lacked detail and care plans had not been updated to reflect changes in the support offered and changes in the times of care calls.

The person expressed their views to the provider, who was also the registered manager, on a regular basis. However, there was limited evidence of how this was used to drive improvement. Complaints were acknowledged but were not always addressed in a professional way.

We could not be confident that staff had the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the person they supported. This was because we saw no evidence of training in medicines management and food hygiene.

Staff had received training in other areas such as safeguarding, moving and handling, first aid and infection control. This supported staff to provide safe care in these areas.

There was a lack of auditing and governance in the service. The provider failed to provide requested evidence as part of this inspection. The provider’s procedure for infection prevention and control followed current government guidance relating to COVID-19. There was a sufficient stock of PPE available to staff.

Recruitment procedures checked that prospective staff were suitable to care for people receiving personal care in their own homes, because all the required pre-employment checks were undertaken before they started work.

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

This service was registered with us on 23 May 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned first inspection in line with our inspection schedule. Though the service has been inspected it has not been rated because at the time of the inspection a limited service was being provided, only one person was receiving minimal support with personal care.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.