Meridian Health and Social Care - Coventry

Updated 2 December 2022

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 carried out by two inspectors.

Service and service type

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

Registered Manager

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 24 hours' notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection. Inspection activity started on 19 July 2022 and ended on 22 July 2022. We visited the location's office on 20 July 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who used the service and six relatives. We spoke with five members of staff including the registered manager, a team leader and care staff.

We reviewed a range of records. This included six people's care records. We looked at three staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of other records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 2 December 2022

About the service

Meridian Health and Social Care is a domiciliary care service, providing personal care to people living in their own homes. 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

People told us they felt safe using the service. People were cared for by staff who knew how to keep them safe and protect them from avoidable harm. There were enough staff available to meet people's needs. People told us staff arrived at the scheduled time and always stayed for the specified period. People were supported to take their medicines safely. Incidents and accidents were reported, investigated and actions taken to prevent recurrence.

People's needs were assessed, and care plans were in place. People were cared for by staff who had been trained to carry out their roles and who were knowledgeable about the support people needed. People 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.

People told us they were cared for by kind and compassionate staff. Staff understood the need to respect people's privacy and dignity. Staff supported people to be as independent as they wanted to be.

Staff were knowledgeable about people's support needs as well as people's preferences for how they wanted to be cared for. Staff understood how to communicate with people in a way they understood, and information was available to people in their chosen format. There was a complaints procedure in place and people knew how to complain if they needed to.

There were robust quality assurance processes in place. Regular audits of all aspects of the service were undertaken and the findings of these were used to drive improvement of the service. Staff spoke highly of the registered manager and the management team.

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 12 October 2020 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

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