Short Term Intervention Team (STIT)

Updated 9 May 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 was carried out by one adult social care inspector.

Service and service type:

Home Support Service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults. Not everyone using Home Support Service receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to persona hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

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.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because we needed to make sure the manager and staff were available during our inspection. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

We visited the office location on 3 April 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We made telephone calls to people, their relatives and staff on 4 and 5 April 2019.

What we did:

Our inspection was informed by evidence we already held about the service. We also checked for feedback from local authority safeguarding and other stakeholders.

Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We spoke with four people and three of their relatives. We spoke with the registered manager, two team managers, a planner, and five home support workers.

We reviewed seven people's care records, three staff personnel files, audits and other records about the management of the service.

Updated 9 May 2019

About the service:

• Home Support Service, known as Short Term Intervention Team (STIT), is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes.

• Home Support Service primarily provide a reablement service. The reablement service provides people with support for up to six weeks to help them live independently following discharge from hospital. In some instances people receive ‘extended reablement’ longer than six weeks until a permanent care provider can be found. At the time of our inspection there were 242 people receiving support with personal care from the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

• Systems and processes were in place and followed to keep people safe.

• Risks relating to people, for example, for moving and handling and medication were assessed and actions in place to mitigate these.

• People were supported to remain as independent as possible.

• Infection control practices were described in people’s care and support plans.

• Accidents and incidents were monitored and analysed. Learning from these were discussed at group meetings with staff.

• People’s needs and choices were assessed in line with current legislation. People had consented to their care and treatment.

• Staff received an induction and training was provided.

• Advice was sought from a range of health professionals to ensure people had timely access to healthcare services.

• People’s individual needs were considered and appropriate equipment sought to support people’s needs.

• The service received lots of compliments and thank-you cards praising staff.

• People were involved in planning their care needs.

• Care plans were person-centred and contained detailed information about people’s preferences and lives.

• Information packs in people’s homes contained information about how to contact the service, make comments, complain and complete surveys about the service they had received.

• The service works in partnership with other providers and closely with the health service to deliver seamless care to people using the service. The service is running pilots to improve the quality of the service.

• We have made a recommendation that the provider amends the service’s statement of purpose and registration with CQC as these were not consistent with the service provided.

Rating at last inspection:

• At our last inspection the service was rated good at the last inspection (4 November 2016).

Why we inspected:

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

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk