GPS Care Services

GPS Care Services is a domiciliary care agency which means staff go into people's own homes to provide care and support. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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 there were two people using the service.

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

People were happy with the care and support they received. Since the last inspection the provider had made significant improvements to the running of the service, to ensure people’s care was consistently safe. Background checks were completed to ensure only suitable persons were employed to provide care. Health and safety risks were considered and managed to ensure people’s safety and autonomy was maintained. Medicines were managed in a safe way, with minor improvements needed to the management of topical creams. People consistently told us staff were kind and they received support from the same core group of staff, which promoted good continuity of care.

The provider had made positive changes to their systems of governance since our last visit, but improvements were ongoing. Audit systems remained absent in some key areas of care delivery. We saw no evidence this had impacted on people’s care. People benefitted from a management team who were involved in the delivery of people’s care and were ‘hands on’ when it came to responding to people’s feedback. Record keeping systems had improved, these were now accurate and clear. Records of care reviews however, lacked detail and did not provide a clear audit trail of decisions made about a person’s care.

People were supported by staff who were competent and skilled. Care plans were person-centred and people were fully involved in decisions about their care and support. Staff asked people for their consent before providing them with any care. People who used the service were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was inadequate (published 23 March 2022). At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations 9, 12, 18 and 19. The provider remained in breach of regulation 17.

This service has been in Special Measures since 22 March 2022. During this inspection the provider demonstrated that improvements have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

Why we inspected

This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.

Enforcement

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.

We have identified a breach in relation to good governance at this inspection.

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

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

GPS Care Services is a domiciliary care agency which means staff go into people's own homes to provide care and support. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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 there were seven people using the service.

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

People and a relative told us they were happy with the care and support they received. However, the service was not managed in a manner which promoted safe care. Quality checks were completed infrequently, and records relating to people and staff were disorganised or in many cases not present. Staff were not always safely recruited and appropriately supported by the management team to carry out the duties they were employed to perform. People’s needs were not always identified through a robust assessment of needs and care plans lacked detail, which meant staff did not have access to clear information about how to support people in a person-centred way. People’s health and safety risks were not consistently identified by the provider and measures to reduce such risks were not explored or implemented. People’s care plans were not being regularly reviewed to ensure they reflected their wishes, feelings or changing needs.

Most people received their medicines as prescribed. However, we found a number of record keeping issues and people’s medicine support plans lacked the detail necessary to facilitate safe administration.

People consistently told us staff were kind and they received support from the same core group of staff, which promoted good continuity of care. People praised the registered manager and told us they benefitted from a ‘hands on’ approach to managing their concerns or queries. However, not all practical steps to empower people to be more in control of their care had been taken, such as ensuring everyone had access to a copy of their care plan or giving people regular opportunities to review their care.

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 17/12/2020 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staffing. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Enforcement

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.

We have identified breaches in relation to medicines, managing risk, assessment of people’s needs and care planning, recruitment, staff training and support, and the provider's systems of governance at this inspection.

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

Follow up

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe. And there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.

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.