Bridgewater House

Updated 24 March 2022

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 one inspector and an Expert by Experience undertook telephone interviews with people and relatives. 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.

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

We gave the service 12 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.

Inspection activity started and ended on 8 March 2022. We visited the location’s office on 8 March 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with 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 two people who used the service and five relatives of other people about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with five members of staff including the registered manager, manager, deputy manager, administrator and one care worker. We emailed questionnaires for staff to complete and received four replies.

We reviewed a range of records. This included five people’s care records and the medicines records for all three people who received support with this. We looked at five 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.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at training data and quality assurance records.

Updated 24 March 2022

About the service

Bridgewater House is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to mostly older people living in their own homes mainly in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It also supports some adults who are living with dementia and adults who have physical or learning disabilities. At the time of our inspection the service was providing care to 13 people.

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

People told us they felt safe. Where there were risks to people’s safety and wellbeing, these had been assessed and the provider had done all that was reasonably practicable to lessen those risks.

People who required support with their medicines received these safely and as prescribed. Staff received training in the administration of medicines and had their competencies assessed.

People's care and risk management plans set out the care tasks they required help with and these contained personalised information about people and their preferences for how they liked to be supported.

There were robust systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and recognise when improvements were required. The provider was transparent and there was clear communication within the team, so they learnt from mistakes and made improvements when things went wrong.

We received positive feedback from people about using the service. People said staff were caring and treated them with dignity and respect.

There were enough staff to support people and staff usually arrived on time at people’s homes. The provider’s monitoring system helped ensure people received all their visits as planned. Staff received induction, training and supervision and felt supported in their roles.

The provider sought feedback from people, relatives and staff and used this to develop the service. People and staff were confident they could raise any concerns they had with the registered manager and felt they would be listened to.

The registered manager, manager and senior staff were responsive to and worked in partnership with other agencies to meet people’s needs.

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

The last rating for this service was good (published January 2020).

Why we inspected

We received whistleblowing concerns in relation to the provider. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, responsive 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 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, responsive 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 Bridgewater House 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.