Archived: SOS Homecare Halton Service

Updated 2 December 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 was 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 21 July, 10 August and 3 September 2015. We visited service users in their own homes on the first and second days of the inspection.

The provider was given 24 hours’ notice on each day when we visited the office because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone was available in the office as well as giving notice to people who used the service that we would like to visit them at home.

The inspection team was made up of two adult social care inspectors on the first day on which one of the inspectors undertook visits to people who used the service in their own homes. The other inspector contacted other people who used the service and visited them in their own home and returned to the office on the second day of the inspection. The inspection team also included 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 in this case services for older people. The expert-by-experience contacted people who used the service in between the inspection days.

The registered provider had sent us a Provider Information Return before the inspection which we reviewed before the inspection together with reports form the local authority which commissioned services from it. We reviewed all this together with information already held by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

During the inspection we visited three people who used the service and two people who either lived with them or who were their relatives. When we spoke with them we also asked for permission to look at the care records kept in their home. We were invited to visit one other person but they decided they would prefer to speak to us by telephone. The expert-by-experience talked by telephone with eight people who used the service as well as nine relatives. Where a person requested further contact with the CQC an inspector followed this up either in person or by telephone.

During our visits to the office we spoke with the registered manager, operations director, care coordinator and training manager. We spoke with four members of care staff. We looked at four care plans as well as four staff files and reviewed a number of documents including policies and procedures.

Updated 2 December 2015

This inspection took place on 21 July, 10 August and 3 September 2015. The provider was given 24 hours’ notice on the first and third days because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone was available in the office as well as giving notice to people who used the service that we would like to visit them at home.

This was the first inspection of SOS Homecare Halton Service since it registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2014. At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting 24 people with personal care in their own homes. The majority of people who used the service were older people. Most of the service was provided on the basis of a commission by Halton Borough Council.

There has been a registered manager at SOS Homecare Halton Service continuously throughout its registration with the CQC. 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. The registered manager had recently changed in August 2015 just before our inspection.

We found breaches of Regulations relating to medicines, safe care and treatment and governance. Medicines were not always administered safely, we could not be satisfied that people had received the care planned for them and records were not always kept accurately. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

We found that the service provided by SOS Homecare Halton Service required improvement in all the areas we looked at. In addition to the breaches of regulations, people who used the service did not feel that they were always informed if staff were not going to attend on time as agreed. Quality assurance systems had not delivered the improvements which they identified were required.

People who used the service felt safe and staff were checked as suitable for their role, inducted into it and then trained so they could do their jobs. People who used the service liked the staff and were complimentary about them. Care plan documentation was easy to understand and was designed around the needs of people who used the service. Management had access to good information available about the service and had implemented some communication systems such as staff meetings and supervision.