Oxford House Community Care

Updated 26 March 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:

Our inspection was completed by two adult social care 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:

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.

Not everyone using Oxford House Community Care receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit so the manager had time to arrange gaining consent from people for us to shadow home visits. We also gave notice to the manager to ensure they would be available to assist us with our inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started on 31 January 2019 and ended on 7 February 2019. We visited the office location on both dates to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Our inspection was informed by evidence we already held about the service. We were aware of a safeguarding strategy meeting regarding the alleged neglect of a person using the service, so we looked at safe systems and mitigating actions during the inspection. We checked for feedback we received from members of the public, and local authorities. We checked records held by Companies House and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Due to technical problems, we did not ask the provider to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements.

We telephoned 18 people using the service and 17 relatives on 31 January 2019 and 1 February 2019 to gather their feedback. We shadowed two different care workers during two homes visits. We spoke with the registered manager, eight care workers, the care manager, the care co-ordinator, one area supervisor, one senior care worker, the office support and the accountant. We emailed staff members, commissioners and other healthcare agencies to gather their feedback and received five responses.

We reviewed parts of 15 people's care records including care plans, risk assessments and medicines administration records. We checked five staff personnel files, 14 accident and incident reports and other records about the management of the service. After our inspection, we asked the registered manager to send us further documents which we received promptly and reviewed as part of our inspection.

Updated 26 March 2019

About the service:

Oxford House Community Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults, people with dementia, people with mental health conditions and people with a physical disability. At the time of our inspection 156 people used the service and there were 70 staff employed. For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

People's experience of using this service:

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of "outstanding" in the well-led key question and "good" in all other key questions.

• The service provided strong vision and leadership to a motivated staff team who felt valued by management.

• The service had robust quality assurance processes to measure, document, improve and evaluate the quality of care.

• The service was always investigating ways to develop and improve the experience of people who used the service.

• People benefitted from the service's connections with other health and social care agencies and community presence.

• People's privacy and dignity was respected by staff.

• Care planning documentation clearly identified people’s diverse needs, preferences and choices.

• The service worked with other agencies to provide support to people at the end of their life in accordance with their wishes.

• People received personalised care which met their individual needs and were supported to express their wishes.

• People and relatives told us the service was compassionate and respected their preferences and decisions.

• Staff were knowledgeable and experienced. They received appropriate training and support to ensure they could carry out their roles effectively.

• More information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection:

At the last inspection the service was rated Good overall and Requires Improvement in the effective key question (7 April 2015).

Why we inspected:

This inspection was part of our routine scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.