We inspected Mears Care Rotherham on 16 June 2017. The inspection was announced in accordance with our methodology for inspecting domiciliary care services. The provider was given 48 hours notice of the inspection. This was the first inspection of the service at this location. Mears Care Rotherham provides personal care to people living in their own homes, operating in Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster and Wakefield. The service had a registered manager. 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.
People using the service, and those who were important to them, were involved in planning their care. People told us that the staff were caring in their approach. People were treated with respect and their privacy, dignity and independence were protected.
Care staff were trained in protecting people from harm, and the provider had appropriate systems in place for addressing safeguarding concerns
The registered provider used robust systems to help ensure care staff were only employed if they were suitable and safe to work in people’s homes.
The provider had taken steps to improve how it managed medication, however, we found there were still shortfalls in relation to this, including a lack of documentation when medicines were administered.
The registered manager was knowledgeable about the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and its Code of Practice. They knew how to ensure that the rights of people who were not able to make or to communicate their own decisions were protected.
There were good systems in place to ensure that people received support from staff who had the training and skills to provide the care they needed.
People agreed to the support they received and were involved in reviewing their care to ensure it continued to meet their needs.
People knew how they could raise a concern about the service they received, and where complaints had been received, the provider managed this appropriately.
The registered manager had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service provided. People using the service and their families were asked for their views.
We found that while various aspects of the service were audited, the audits were not always sufficiently robust to identify shortfalls.