Updated 12 March 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 was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type:
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults, and younger disabled adults. At the time of our inspection, there were 21 people using the service.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and we needed to be sure that someone would be available to provide the information we needed for our inspection.
Inspection site visit activity started and ended on 22 February 2019. We visited the office location to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
Prior to the inspection we reviewed any notifications we had received from the service. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law.
We asked the service to complete a Provider Information Return. This information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed any information about the service that we had received from members of the public and external agencies.
During the inspection we looked at records relating to five people’s care, three staff recruitment records, training records and complaints. We also looked at audits and systems in place to check on the quality of service provided. We spoke with the registered manager, the director and four staff; the deputy manager, the care coordinator and care workers. We also spoke with two people who used the service and the relatives of three people on the telephone.