Authentic Kare Milton Keynes

Updated 17 May 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

This inspection was carried out by 2 inspectors and an Expert by Experience. 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 homes.

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. The registered manager was also the provider. This means they are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post. The registered manager was also the provider and nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspections of the Kettering and Milton Keynes locations of Authentic Kare took place at the same time. We visited both offices during the inspection as there were overlaps in systems and processes between the 2 services.

Inspection activity started on 27 April 2023 and ended on 28 April 2023. We visited the Kettering office on 27 April 2023 and visited the Milton Keynes office on 28 April 2023.

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. The provider did not complete the required Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about the service, what it does well and improvements they plan to make. Please see the Well-Led section of this report for further details.

During the inspection

We spoke with 4 relatives of people who received support for feedback on their experience of the care provided. We spoke with registered manager, a care coordinator and received feedback from 8 members of care staff. We reviewed a range of records. This included 2 people’s care records and 1 person’s medicine record. We looked at a variety of records relating to the management of the service. This included quality assurance processes, training records and meeting minutes.

Updated 17 May 2023

About the service

Authentic Kare Milton Keynes is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. Not everyone who uses domiciliary care services receive personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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 inspection 7 people received support with personal care.

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.

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

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

People received safe care and support. Risk assessments and support plans were in place for known risks and these were reviewed regularly. Staff had sufficient guidance to ensure they could provide safe care which mitigated known risks as far as possible. Medicines support was provided safely when required.

Since the last inspection improvements were made to recruitment practices. Safe recruitment processes were followed to ensure staff were suitable for their roles. There were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs. People received consistent care from staff who knew them well.

Staff knew how to reduce the risk of infection spread and used personal protective equipment (PPE). Staff had received training in infection prevention and control. Processes were followed to report and follow up on accidents and incidents. Lessons were learned when something went wrong.

Since the last inspection improvements were made to the running and management oversight of all key areas of the service. Quality assurance audits of key areas of the service were carried out regularly and were embedded into practice. Action plans were used when any areas for improvement or follow up tasks were identified, and these were used effectively. The registered manager was committed to driving ongoing improvements to the service for the benefit of the people receiving support.

Staff were supported through supervision and regular team meetings. A range of spot checks and competency checks were undertaken to support staff development. Surveys were used to gather feedback on people’s experience of the service, and the feedback was used to drive improvements where needed.

The registered manager was aware of their legal responsibilities. Staff worked in partnership with other health and social care professionals involved in people’s care and treatment. Relatives and staff told us they thought the service was well run and provided good quality care to people in their own homes.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and they were supported in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 19 July 2022.) We found breaches of regulation in the areas of staff recruitment processes and good governance.

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.

At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Authentic Kare Milton Keynes on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.