About the service: Sarah Care Limited 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 this inspection the service was supporting approximately 125 people with personal care.
People’s experience of using this service:
• People told us they felt safe receiving care from Sarah Care Limited. People were supported to raise any concerns and they told us the service responded promptly to resolve any issues. Staff were trained in their responsibilities for safeguarding adults from abuse. This supported people to stay safe.
• Staff were trained in safe medicines administration. They administered people’s medicines in a safe way. However, we identified that improvements were required to the records maintained by the service in respect of medicines management, particularly when staff were prompting people with their medicines. Staff did not always record prompts given with individual medicines and the service did not always gather information about the medicines people were taking when staff prompted with medicines. This was a breach of regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014; good governance.
• Risks to people receiving care where assessed, however some improvements were needed in this area to ensure all risks were adequately assessed and all necessary risk reduction measures were recorded.
• People told us they usually received care from a small number of regular care workers who knew them well. They told us staff usually turned up on time, stayed for the correct length of time and provided them with all the support they needed in accordance with their preferences.
• Staff were kind and caring and were keen to deliver a person-centred service. People told us they felt well-treated and staff were respectful towards them.
• People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. People's consent was obtained before care was delivered. Where people were unable to consent to their care due to a lack of capacity, relevant people were consulted about their care in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. We have made a recommendation about the service obtaining copies of Lasting Powers of Attorney granted by people using the service.
• People were supported to make decisions about their care and were involved in regular reviews to make sure it continued to meet their needs.
• Feedback was regularly obtained from people using the service, their relatives and staff via various methods. It was used to improve the service and to improve people’s experience of receiving care.
• Staff received a wide range of training which supported them to undertake their roles effectively. Staff told us they were very well supported by the registered managers and they felt the service was well-managed.
• We found there was an open, welcoming, positive culture within the service. Staff all enjoyed their jobs and the staff team communicated well and worked effectively together. People using the service told us the communication they had with the service was very good and the service was efficiently run.
• The service worked well with other organisations and this supported them to deliver effective care to people. We received positive feedback about the service from one of their commissioners prior to this inspection.
• Senior staff and the registered managers completed a range of checks on the service to monitor the quality and safety of the care provided. We found some improvements were needed to the quality assurance system to ensure it adequately identified the issues we found in the assessment of risk and recording of medicines support.
• More information is in the full report.
Rating at last inspection:
At the last inspection the service was rated good (published 21 September 2016).
Why we inspected:
This was a planned inspection based on the rating awarded at the last inspection.
Enforcement:
Please see the 'action we have told the provider to take' section at the end of the full report.
Follow up:
We will continue to monitor the intelligence we receive about this service until we return to visit as part of our re-inspection programme for those services rated requires improvement. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk