Updated 13 April 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:
• This inspection was conducted 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 in the community. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults.
• Following our inspection the new care manager was successfully registered with the Care Quality Commission as a registered manager. 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 the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
• Inspection site visit activity started on 27 March 2019 and ended on 01 April 2019. We visited the office location on 27 March 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We called people and their relatives on 01 April 2019.
What we did:
• Prior to the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service, including information shared with us by the local authority and members of the public. We also reviewed statutory notifications sent to us by the provider. Statutory notifications are information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law. We used this information to plan our inspection.
• We reviewed a range of policy and procedure documents as well as quality assurance records. We also looked at the care files for three people, and three staff files. We spoke with the director, the care manager, a supervisor and five care workers. Following the inspection we contacted three people and two relatives. We received feedback from one professional.