Updated 10 July 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
The inspection was carried out by one inspector and one expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults and/or younger disabled adults. Home First – Newcastle provides a short term service of up to 28 days. People receive support following a hospital stay or other event, with the aim of supporting them to regain their independence.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.
Notice of inspection
The inspection site visit activity started on 5 June 2019 and was announced. We gave the service four days’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that people’s consent was gained for us to contact them for their feedback.
What we did
As part of our inspection planning we reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we ask the provider to send to us to give us key information about the service such as things they do well and any improvements they plan to make. We reviewed notifications that we had received. A notification is a document that tells us about events that had happened at the service, such as deaths and serious injuries which the provider is required to send to us by law. We used all of this information to help us formulate our inspection plan.
During the inspection we visited the office location to see the registered manager and office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures. The expert by experience made telephone calls to people who use the service. We spoke with nine people who used the service and seven relatives. We spoke with two members of care staff, two locality coordinators and the registered manager. We looked at five care records, one staff file and other staff recruitment related documentation, medication administration records, accidents and incidents records, complaints and compliments and records that related to the management and running of the service, such as audits.