Blue Ribbon Community Care in South West London

Updated 7 June 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

An inspector and an expert-by-experience were involved in carrying out this inspection. The expert-by-experience had personal experience of caring for someone who received a home care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to mainly older adults living in their own homes who may have physical disabilities and/or be living with dementia.

The service continued to have the same manager registered with the CQC. 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 four days’ notice of the inspection visit because we needed to be sure the office-based managers would all be available for us to speak with during our inspection. Inspection activity started on 13 May 2019 and ended on 22 May 2019.

What we did

Before our inspection, we reviewed all the key information providers are required to send us about their service, including statutory notifications. We used this information to help inform our inspection planning. Due to technical problems, the provider was not able to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

During our inspection we visited the service’s offices on 22 May 2019 and spoke in-person with the registered manager, the managing director and the assistant [deputy] manager. We also looked at a range of records including, five people’s care plans, three staff files and various documents relating to the overall management of the service.

Prior to our visit to the providers offices we made telephone contact with six people receiving a service from this agency, three of their relatives and six support workers.

Updated 7 June 2019

About the service

Blue Ribbon Community Care in South West London is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of our inspection 22 people were receiving personal care from them. Most people were older adults who had a range of physical disabilities and were also living with dementia.

20 other people who also received domiciliary support from this agency but did not receive a regulated activity from them. This included companionship and cleaning services. The 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. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service

People’s experiences of using this service had improved in the 12 months since their last inspection. The overall rating for this service has therefore increased from ‘Requires improvement’ to ‘Good’.

This was because we found at this inspection the provider had followed the action plan they had sent us and taken appropriate steps to improve people’s care plans and risk management plans to make them more person centred, staffs medicines record keeping, training for staff and the way they operated their quality monitoring systems.

People using the service and their relatives told us they were happy with the service provided by this agency. This quote we received from a relative sums up how people typically felt about this domiciliary care agency, “We’re all very happy with the home care service we’ve received from Blue Ribbon and would happily recommend them to family and friends…The staff are all very kind and caring.”

The improvements described above notwithstanding we have made a recommendation about the way the provider manages informal concerns they receive about their service.

The service had safeguarding procedures in place and staff had a clear understanding of these procedures. Appropriate staff recruitment checks took place before new staff started working for the service. Staff scheduled visits were well-coordinated., which meant they were punctual. The service had procedures in place to reduce the risk of the spread of infection.

Staff had the right mix of knowledge, skills and experience required to meet people’s needs. Staff routinely sought the consent of the people they supported ensuring they had maximum choice and control of over their lives. Where staff were responsible for this, people were supported to maintain a nutritionally well-balanced diet. People received the support they needed to stay healthy and to access community-based health care support as and when required.

People received support from staff who were kind and compassionate. Staff treated people with dignity and respected their privacy. Staff met people’s spiritual and cultural needs and wishes. People were encouraged and supported to develop their independent living skills. Assessments of people’s support needs were carried out before they started using the service.

People’s care plans were developed from these assessments and routinely reviewed to ensure they remained up to date. People had been consulted about their support needs and involved in helping staff develop their personalised care plans. People’s end of life care wishes were recorded in their care plan.

Management support was available for staff when they needed it. The provider promoted an open and inclusive culture which sought the views of people using the service, their relatives, professional representatives and staff. The provider worked in close partnership with other health and social care professionals and agencies to plan and deliver people’s packages of care and support.

Rating at the last inspection

At the last inspection the service was rated ‘Requires Improvement’ overall (Report was published on 12 June 2018) and for four out of the five key questions including, ‘Is the service safe, effective, responsive and well-led?’ Following that inspection, we asked the provider to complete an action plan to show us what they would do and by when to improve these key questions, to at least ‘Good’.

Why we inspected

This inspection was carried out as part of our scheduled plan of visiting services rated requires improvement within 12 months of their last inspection report being published. This inspection was carried out to check the quality and safety of the service people received and that provider had done what they said they would in the improvement plan we asked them to complete.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates in keeping with our inspection methodology (See above).

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