Updated 12 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: The inspection team consisted of one inspector and two 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. Their area of expertise was domiciliary care.
Service and service type: Suite 1 is a domiciliary care agency and provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults. Not everyone using Suite 1 receives a regulated activity; Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. For these people we also take into account any wider social care provided.
The service had a manager registered with the CQC. This means 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: We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit. We needed to be sure the registered manager would be available to facilitate this inspection. We visited the office location on 25 and 26 February 2019.
What we did: Before the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service, including statutory notifications. Notifications are used to inform CQC about certain changes, events or incidents that occur. We requested feedback from stakeholders. These included the local authority safeguarding and commissioning team and Healthwatch England. Healthwatch England is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form providers are required to send us which contains 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 with 12 people who used the service and five relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the owner, the registered manager, deputy manager, field care manager and five care staff members. We looked at four people's care plans and a selection of medication administration records. We saw records and documentation about the management of the service, recruitment information for two staff members, staff training and supervisions records, complaints and staff rotas.