Updated 28 December 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 an expert by experience (ExE) who made phone calls to people and their relatives. An ExE is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The ExE had experience working with older people.
Service and service type: Star Nursing and Recruitment Agency is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a personal service to both older adults and younger disabled adults.
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: Inspection site visit activity took place on 20 November 2019. We visited the office location to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection because it is small, and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
What we did: Prior to the inspection we reviewed the information we held about service including notifications we had received. Notifications are information about important events the provider is required to tell us about by law. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to help inform our inspection planning.
During the inspection: We reviewed three people’s care records and three staff files which included recruitment checks, training records and supervision notes. We reviewed other records relating to the management and running of the service such as the provider’s quality assurance systems. We spoke to five relatives of people using the service, the registered manager, nominated individual and training and recruitment manager. Most of the people using the service had limited verbal communication so we could not speak to them.
After the inspection, we spoke to three care staff to obtain their feedback about the service.