Archived: Winsford Network

Updated 31 March 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 14 and 20 January 2015 and we gave short notice of our visit. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides domiciliary care and we needed to ensure someone was available at the office.

We spent time looking at records, which included three people’s care records, five staff recruitment files and other records relating to the management of the service.

The inspection team consisted of an adult social care inspector.

Before our inspection, we reviewed all the information we held about the service. This included notifications received from the registered manager and we checked that we had received these in a timely manner. We also looked at safeguarding referrals, complaints and any other information from members of the public. We contacted the local safeguarding team, the local authority contracts team and Healthwatch for their views on the service. Healthwatch is the new independent consumer champion created to gather and represent the views of the public. They all confirmed that they had no concerns regarding the service.

On the second day of our inspection, we spoke with nine people who used the service, four relatives, two senior support workers and four members of the care team. We also spoke with the registered manager and the new manager for the service. The registered manager was retiring at the end of January 2015.

Updated 31 March 2015

We visited this service on 14 and 20 January 2015 and we gave short notice to the service that we were visiting. This was to ensure that people were available at the office on the first day of our visit. This was the first inspection of this service, which was registered with us on 19 March 2014. It was previously owned by Cheshire West and Chester Council and most of the staff team transferred their employment over to the new company.

Winsford Network is registered to provide personal care to people who use the service. They provide 24 hour support for up to 27 adults with learning disabilities who have tenancy agreements so are living in their own homes. At the time of our visit there were 23 people using the service.

The service has a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us that they were happy with the staff at Winsford Network and they felt that the staff understood their care needs. People commented “Staff are wonderful with my relative”, “Staff are very good and patient”, “My relative has an excellent quality of life”, “My relative is looked after very well.” The people who used the service confirmed that they went out and about in the community with the staff and did what they wanted. We saw that people who used the service were happy and relaxed in the company of staff and that staff treated them with dignity and respect. The relatives we spoke with were very satisfied with the care and support of their family members by the staff at Winsford Network.

We found that people, where possible, were involved in decisions about their care and support. Staff made appropriate referrals on behalf of people who used the service, to other professionals and community services, such as the GP, where it had been identified that there were changes in a person’s health needs. We saw that the staff team understood people’s care and support needs, and the staff we observed were kind and thoughtful towards them and treated them with respect.

The care records contained detailed information about the support people required and were written in a way that recognised people’s needs. This meant that the person was put at the centre of what was being described. The records we saw were completed and up to date.

We found the provider had systems in place to ensure that people were protected from the risk of potential harm or abuse. We saw there were policies and procedures in place to guide staff in relation to safeguarding adults. Therefore staff had documents available to them to help them understand the risk of potential harm or abuse of people who used the service.

We found that good recruitment practices were in place which included the completion of pre-employment checks prior to a new member of staff working at the service. Therefore people who used Winsford Network could be confident that they were protected from staff that were known to be unsuitable.