Birmingham Business Associate Limited

Updated 26 June 2018

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 is 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 comprehensive inspection took place over three days on 30 and 31 May and 01 June 2018. The inspection was announced and the provider was given 48 hours’ notice. This was because the service provides personal care and support to people living in their own home and we needed to be sure that the registered manager and staff would be available to meet with us. The first day was spent with the registered manager, care consultant manager and staff at the provider’s office and the second and third days were spent making phone calls to people who use the service and their relatives.

The inspection team comprised of one 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.

When planning our inspection, we looked at the information we held about the service. This included the Provider Information Return (PIR) and the notifications received from the provider about deaths, safeguarding alerts and accidents/incidents which they are required to send us by law. A PIR is information we require providers to send to us annually to give key information about the service, what the service does well and what improvements they intend to make.

As part of the inspection process we spoke with three people who use the service, eight relatives, the registered manager, the care consultant manager and six care staff. We looked at five people’s care records to see how their care and support was planned and delivered. We also looked at medicine records, staff recruitment and training files, policies and procedures and the provider’s quality monitoring systems.

Updated 26 June 2018

This announced inspection took place on the 30 and 31 May and 01 June 2018. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice that we would be visiting the service. This was because the service provides domiciliary care and support to people living in their own homes and we wanted to make sure staff would be available to talk to us about the service.

Birmingham Business Associate is a domiciliary care agency registered to provider person care to people living in their own homes. The service currently provides care and support to 25 people ranging in age, gender, ethnicity and disability.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

At our last inspection on 08 and 09 May 2017 we found that the provider’s recruitment and quality monitoring systems and processes were not always robust and required improvements.

The provider had made improvements to their recruitment processes to ensure they employed suitable staff. Systems had been put in place to audit medication administration records (MARs) and log sheets. However, these audits had not been analysed to identify issues and trends to reduce future reoccurrence.

People were safe because staff had the skills and knowledge to meet their needs. Staff had a good knowledge and understanding of how to spot signs of abuse and where to report concerns to both internally and externally. People had the appropriate risk assessments in place to ensure risks to people were minimised. People were supported to take their medicines as required.

People and their relatives were involved in both initial assessments and reviews of their care. People were supported by kind and caring staff who knew their needs well. People were given choice and control over their care and staff supported them in the least restrictive way, promoting independence as much as possible. People had access to health care professionals when required.

People and their relatives knew how to complain and raise concerns. Complaints had been investigated and dealt with in an open and honest way and people and relatives were happy with the outcome. Feedback was sought from people and relatives via a quality questionnaire and audits were in place. However, the provider had not used the information from feedback, audits, complaints and incidents to identify trends and reduce the chance of reoccurrence.