Updated 20 June 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection team consisted of an inspector, an assistant inspector and an expert by experience (ExE). An ExE is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
Service and service type:
The service had a manager in post who was registered with the Care Quality Commission. The registered manager and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
At the time of the inspection the registered manager was working on secondment in another service operated by the provider. A temporary manager was in post and the provider had sent in the required legal notification to inform CQC of the management arrangements in place.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection activity started on 21 May 2019 and ended on 22 May 2019. We visited the office location on 22 May 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
As part of the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked to see if statutory notifications had been sent by the provider. A statutory notification contains information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We reviewed information that had been sent to us by the public. We used this information to help us plan our inspection.
During the inspection we spoke with two people who used the service and five relatives. As many of the people using the service were not able to share their views by telephone, we met with two people face to face to ask about their experiences of using the service. We spoke with the area operations manager, the manager and five staff members. We reviewed records relating to people’s medicines, three people’s care records and records relating to the management of the service; including staff recruitment records, complaints and quality assurance records.