Medirite Healthcare

Updated 22 March 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in one ‘supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support. The service is also registered to support people with domiciliary care in their own homes, extra care in specially adapted properties and shared lives which provides people with long-term placements, short breaks and respite care, within shared lives carers (SLC) own homes.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 1 person using the service. We also spoke with 7 staff including the registered manager, deputy manager and care staff.

We reviewed a range of records. We looked at 1 person’s care plan and medicine administration records. We looked at 4 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service were also reviewed, including training records, complaints, compliments, incident records, quality assurance processes and various policies and procedures.

Updated 22 March 2023

About the service

Medirite Healthcare provided support to 4 people at the time of the inspection. The service is registered to support older people including those living with dementia, younger adults, people with learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorders, sensory impairments and people requiring support with their mental health. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At this inspection, they were providing a regulated activity for 1 person in a supported living setting.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Staff were not recruited safely, the provider failed to ensure that all relevant checks were made to ensure that staff were of good character.

Governance systems were not effective at identifying where improvements were required.

People’s plans of care and risk assessments did not always contain up to date information. People received their medicines as prescribed and were dispensed by staff who were trained and competent to carry out the task. People were protected from the risk of abuse. Accidents and incidents were recorded with appropriate actions taken to reduce the risk of re-occurrence.

Staff felt supported by the management of the service. Management understood their duty to be open and honest with people when things went wrong. The service worked alongside other agencies to ensure people received support when needed.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 20 May 2017).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to an adverse incident. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Medirite Healthcare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to safe recruitment of staff and governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.