Routes Healthcare (North East Limited)

Updated 13 January 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 team consisted of an inspector and 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.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

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 not a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave notice to the service of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that a member of the management team would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 1 December 2022 and ended on 19 December 2022. We visited the location’s office on 5 December 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We contacted the local authority commissioning team and safeguarding team for their feedback about the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 4 people and 4 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 4 support workers by telephone and interviewed 7 support workers by email. We spoke to the service manager for complex care, a supporting manager, and the quality and service improvement manager. We reviewed a range of records. This included 4 people's care records and multiple medication records. We looked at 2 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures, were reviewed.

Updated 13 January 2023

About the service

Routes Healthcare (North East Limited) is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 39 people using the service. 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.

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

The management of the service was not always effective. There had been a period of a number of management changes and some staff had felt uncertain during this period. People and their relatives also said that there had been issues with missed or late calls. However, people commented that this had improved recently. The provider was working to put support in place for staff and create a stable management structure.

Quality assurance checks were carried out to ensure people were receiving safe and good quality care. Feedback from staff and people had been listened to. Lessons had been learnt from incidents however they were not always well documented so we couldn’t be certain of the impact.

People were safe from the risk of abuse. Risks were assessed and regularly reviewed when people's needs changed. People were supported in positive risk taking.

Medicines were managed safely. The provider employed sufficient staff, who were trained appropriately and recruited safely. Staff worked effectively with visiting professionals and wore PPE to keep people safe.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

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 14 July 2017).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to management oversight and missed calls. 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 not changed and remains good based on the findings of this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

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

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.