Comfort Call Gateshead

Updated 14 April 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 1 inspector and 2 Experts 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.

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 to request information about the service, people and relatives and to make sure the provider or registered manager would be available to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 9 December 2022 and ended on 31 January 2023. We visited the office on 31 January 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we held about the service. 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 sought feedback from the local authority contracts monitoring and safeguarding adults' teams and reviewed the information they provided. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 8 people and 15 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the regional manager, the registered manager and the recruitment officer. We sent surveys to 20 staff members and received 3 responses.

We reviewed a range of records including 4 people’s care records and medicines records. We looked at recruitment records for 3 members of staff. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 14 April 2023

About the service

Comfort Call Gateshead is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and support 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. At the time of inspection 137 people were receiving 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.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

People and relatives were happy with the service and the care people received. A new staff rota system had been implemented since the last inspection and most people and relatives reported they received care from consistent staff who mostly arrived on time and stayed for the correct duration. People and relatives told us they had raised concerns previously and these were acted upon and resolved. However, a small number still felt things raised weren’t always acted upon. We have made a recommendation about this.

Lessons had been learned since our last inspection and improvements had been made. The provider learned from previous accidents and incidents to reduce future risks to people.

There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and the provider was operating a continuous recruitment process to increase staffing levels further. Safe recruitment processes were followed. There were systems in place to keep people safe. Risks to people’s health, safety and well-being were managed. Staff safeguarded people from abuse. Medicines were safely administered and managed. The provider and staff protected people from the risk or spread of infection.

Staff were kind and compassionate and supported people in a respectful, dignified manner. Staff encouraged people to maintain their independence where safe and possible to do so. Relatives supported people to make decisions around their care and support.

The provider had quality assurance process in place which included regular audits and spot checks. Most people and relatives were happy with the service and felt it was well-managed. Comments included, “I would describe (staff) as kind and caring. For any major changes I am called. I know the full pool of people that come, and they support [family member] in the way that she prefers” and, “I wouldn’t have recommended in the past but now things have improved, I would.” The registered manager promoted an open and honest culture and was approachable. People and relatives were regularly consulted about the quality of the service through surveys and reviews.

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 (published 21 December 2020).

Why we inspected

We carried out a focused inspection of this service on 21 December 2020 looking at safe, caring and well-led. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve Regulation 17 (Good governance).

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Caring and Well-led which contain those requirements.

For the key question not inspected, we used the rating awarded at the last comprehensive inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Comfort Call Gateshead 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.