• Services in your home
  • Homecare service

Elite Homecare

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit 1, Pepper Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport, Cheshire, SK7 5DP 07591 044631

Provided and run by:
Mr Michael James Crossley

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 10 May 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 completed by one adult social care inspector and one 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 service. The expert-by-experience had personal experience of older adults and adults with dementia, and people who used both residential and community services.

Service and service type:

Elite Home care is a small Domiciliary Care Agency which provides personal care to people in their own homes.

Not everyone using Elite Homecare receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

The provider of Elite Homecare is a registered individual and this person was part of the management team. 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. The service has a manager who was new to post. The provider intends that the new manager will register with the CQC as the registered manager. This process had not yet begun.

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 available to answer any questions we might have during the inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started on 03 April 2019 and ended on 30 April 2019. We visited the office location on 3 April 2019 to see the registered provider and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. Following this we made telephone calls to people and their relatives to speak with them about their experience of receiving support from Elite Homecare. We also spoke with staff about their experiences of working for the service.

What we did:

Prior to our inspection we requested a provider information return (PIR); this is a form that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. This was not completed and returned to the CQC by the provider and meant that the well led domain could not be rated higher than ‘requires improvement’.

We reviewed the information we held about the service including notifications the provider had sent to us. We contacted the local authority safeguarding and local commissioning teams to obtain their views about the service. We contacted Healthwatch, which is an independent organisation which collects the views of people who use health and social care services, for any feedback they had received. This information was used to identify key lines of enquiry as part of the inspection.

During the inspection we spoke with seven people who were receiving support from the service, and two relatives on the telephone to gain an understanding of their views of the service and quality of support that people were receiving. We spoke with the registered provider, manager, care co-ordinator and three care staff.

We looked at four people's care records which included a wide range of support plans and risk assessments. We reviewed a range of documents relating to how the service was managed including; three staff personnel files, staff training records, policies, procedures and quality assurance audits.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 10 May 2019

About the service:

Elite Homecare is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care and support to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, 29 people were using the service. Not everyone using the service receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service:

The service had a new management team in place. The new manager had a number of plans to improve the quality of service delivery. This included changes to care records, staff induction and training and governance.

There were systems in place to support the safe recruitment of staff which included references and checks with the disclosure and barring service (DBS).

Staff received the training and support they needed to undertake their role. People said staff knew how to support them appropriately and were well trained.

People and relatives told us staff were respectful and ensured people had their dignity and privacy maintained. People were encouraged to be independent and do as much as they could for themselves.

People and staff told us that there was continuity of care. This meant that people were being supported by staff who knew them well. The manager told us that continuity of care was a priority for the service.

Care records contained the essential information to guide staff on how to support people. The manager was in the process of changing care records and the new paperwork demonstrated care plans would be more person-centred and detailed.

Care records contained information about people’s interests and hobbies. Cultural and religious preferences were considered and detailed within records.

The provider was committed to using information from accidents, incidents, safeguarding, concerns and complaints to drive improvement within the service. This work was ongoing.

Rating at last inspection:

This was the first inspection of the service at this registered location where care is co-ordinated for people living in Stockport. The service was previously registered at a different address where it co-ordinated care for people living in Oldham and Stockport. At that inspection the service was rated as requires improvement (19 September 2017).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection in line with CQC’s guidelines to inspect all newly registered services within 12 months of registration.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service through information we receive and inspect in line with our re-inspection schedule for services rated good overall.

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