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Archived: Relief Group Care

Overall: Requires improvement read more about inspection ratings

8 West Row, Stockton-on-tees, TS18 1BT (01642) 675314

Provided and run by:
Relief Professionals Group Ltd

Important: This service was previously registered at a different address - see old profile

All Inspections

16 December 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

About the service

Relief Group Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. At the time of the inspection the service was providing personal care to seven people.

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.

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

We visited the office to check how people using the service were being kept safe. We reviewed how care was being provided against the information the provider had shared with us.

People told us staff understood their needs and how to support them. However, staff did not always have access to clear information to safely meet people’s needs and to keep themselves safe. Since our last inspection the provider had purchased an electronic recording system to help with safety but there was no clear plan for the implementation of this system.

People received support to take their medicines. However, required actions identified at the last inspection to ensure staff completed this activity safely, following best practice guidance, had not been robustly implemented.

We continued to find errors and omissions in the staff recruitment process. An effective recruitment system was still not fully in place.

Checks to maintain and improve the service had been implemented since our last inspection. For example, the provider had purchased an electronic application to help monitor people’s medicines. However, there was no plan with timescales to action this process. Further processes including oversight and action planning were required to ensure the service remained compliant and people received safe care and support.

The registered manager had an awareness of the work required and showed a determination to implement the required updates.

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 at the previous premises was requires improvement (published 29 October 2019). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection enough improvement had not been made and the provider was still in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service at their previous premises on 28 August 2019. Breaches of legal requirements were found. We undertook this targeted inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Relief Group Care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk. The overall rating for the service has not changed following this targeted inspection and remains requires improvement. The CQC have introduced targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check specific concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.

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.

Follow up

We will request an action plan for 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 return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.