AJB Care Ltd

Updated 31 May 2023

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 2 inspectors and an 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 houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced.

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the service is small and people are often out and we wanted to be sure there would be people at home to speak with us.

Inspection activity started on 16 May 2023 and ended on 17 May 2023. We visited the location’s office on 16 May 2022 and made telephone calls to people and relatives on 16 and 17 May 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority, Healthwatch and professionals who work with the service. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used information gathered as part of a monitoring activity that took place on 14 February 2023 to help plan the inspection and inform judgements.

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 all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke over the telephone with 7 people who used the service and 6 family members. We emailed 6 staff to ask a range of questions. We spoke with 2 care staff in person, a care supervisor, and the registered manager of the service. We visited the office location to review written records. We looked at 3 people's care records. We checked records relating to the management of the service including staff files, policies and procedures and quality assurance records.

Updated 31 May 2023

About the service

AJB Care Ltd is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people with a range of support needs, living in their own homes. 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 this inspection the service was supporting 44 people with personal care.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support:

People, and those who knew them well, were included in planning their care to ensure it met their needs and took account of their wishes.

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.

Right Care:

Risks associated with people’s care and support had been identified and were being monitored. An analysis of accidents and incidents was in place, to ensure that all incidents effectively analysed to ensure lessons were learnt.

People were safeguarded from the risk of abuse. The service had recruitment processes in place to ensure suitable staff were employed. Medicines were managed effectively, and the provider ensured all infection control measures were followed by staff. The service's arrangements for controlling infection were effective.

Feedback about consistency of support workers was that they were reliable and in the main arrived on time, although some people said the timing of visits was sometimes inconsistent. None of these visits were time critical, but we fed back to the registered manager these comments, so they could monitor staff visit times more closely.

Right Culture:

Staff recognised when people needed support from other services, and they sought advice and assistance if they were concerned about people’s health.

People who used the service were satisfied with the care and support they received.

Audits and checks of documents and systems helped ensure continuous learning and improvement. People, their family members and staff had regular opportunities to provide feedback about the service and there was an effective complaints process in place.

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 requires improvement and there was a breach of the regulations (report published 25 March 2019). The provider completed an action plan after that inspection to show what they would do, and by when, to improve.

The service was inspected but not rated at our inspection (report published 1 October 2020). The service had improved but there was still a breach of the regulation made in 2019.

At this inspection we found the provider had made improvements. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. This inspection was also carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for AJB Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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