Sterling Standard Care Group

Updated 23 August 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 was carried out by 1 inspector and 2 Experts by Experience who contacted people and their relatives by telephone for feedback on the care they received. 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, flats and specialist housing.

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 a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before 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 information gathered as part of a monitoring activity that took place on 4 May 2023 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements. 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 reviewed a range of records including 7 people's care records and several medicines records. We looked at 5 staff files in relation to recruitment, training and supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures, complaints and audits were also reviewed.

We made calls and spoke with 2 people using the service and 18 relatives about their experience of the service and care provided.

We spoke with 8 members of staff including 5 care workers, office staff and the registered manager.

Updated 23 August 2023

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

About the service

Sterling Standard Care Group is a domiciliary care service that provides care and support to people living with dementia, older people, people with a learning disability and autistic people, including children. At the time of our visit, the service was providing care and support to 80 people living predominantly in North London.

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. At the time of our visit, around 30 people received personal care.

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

Right Support:

Risks in relation to people's care and welfare were not always thoroughly assessed. This meant staff did not always have the right guidance to support people safely. Systems were in place to manage people’s medicines. However, improvement was needed in the way information about people’s medicines was presented in their care plans and risk assessments.

Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making.

Staff enabled people to access specialist health and social care support in the community.

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.

Right Care:

Staff were deployed effectively to meet people’s needs safely. However, we found shortfalls in recruitment processes, more specifically around staff documentation.

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. People told us staff were kind and caring.

Staff promoted equality and diversity in their support for people.

Right Culture:

The service’s quality improvement processes needed to improve as they failed to identify the issues we found at this inspection.

People received support from a competent staff team. Managers ensured staff had appropriate support and training.

Managers worked towards improving care delivery by involving and gathering the views of people and their loved ones. Staff valued and acted upon people’s views.

There was a positive culture where people felt empowered and were pleased with their care.

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 13 March 2019).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

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 changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Sterling Standard Care Group on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, and good governance.

We made a recommendation about the safe recruitment of staff.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.