Archived: Independant Living Services

Updated 25 June 2015

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 inspection was announced and took place on 22 and 23 January 2015. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we wanted to make sure the manager was available. The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an expert-by-experience of older people. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

We spoke with twenty people who used the service or their relatives, eleven staff and the management team. We spoke with five external health and social care professionals including social workers and nurses, and an officer of the Local Authority.

We looked at five people’s care records and a range of other records relating to the care people received. This included some of the provider’s checks of the quality and safety of people’s care; staff training and recruitment records and medicines administration records.

Updated 25 June 2015

Independant Living Services is a domiciliary care agency based in Chesterfield. It provides personal care to people in their own homes, mostly in the Chesterfield area.

The inspection took place on 22 and 23 January 2015.

There was a registered manager at the service at the time of our inspection. 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.

Since our previous inspection visit in January 2014 we had received a significant amount of information of concern. The key issues from this information concerned the timing of calls, inadequate staff training and insufficient staff to undertake the tasks agreed. We looked into these issues as part of our inspection. The manager confirmed that the information we had received about timing of calls and availability of staff had been correct in most cases. Some improvements had been made following a change of management and operational systems in November 2014. There were enough staff available at the service but we have made a recommendation about their deployment. Staff received relevant training and guidance to ensure people’s needs were met.

People using the service were protected from the risk of abuse because the provider had provided guidance to staff to help minimise any risk of abuse. Decisions related to peoples care were taken in consultation with them, their representative and other healthcare professionals, which ensured their rights were protected.

People told us the care staff were caring and kind and they mostly received the support agreed in their care plan. Formal complaints were well managed but informal concerns and communication with the office had not always been consistent or resolved issues satisfactorily. We have made a recommendation about the management of complaints.

The registered manager at the agency was familiar with needs of the people using the service and staff felt supported by the management team. There were systems in place to enable people to give feedback on the service.