Background to this inspection
Updated
16 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 team consisted of two adult social care inspectors.
Service and service type:
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.
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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection visit. This was because we wanted to make sure the registered manager would be available.
Inspection site visit activity started on 11 April 2019, when visited the office location to see the manager and staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. During our visit to the office we were able to meet a person who used the service as they were attending the provider’s day centre based at the same location as the office. On 12 April we spoke, on the telephone with relatives of people who used the service. We spoke with relatives because most people who used the service were not able to speak with us on the telephone. We also spoke with four members of support staff on the telephone between 12 and 17 April.
What we did:
We reviewed information we had received since the service registered. We used information the provider had sent us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is 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 the improvements they plan to make. We checked information held by the local authority commissioning and safeguarding teams in addition to other partner agencies and intelligence received by the Care Quality Commission.
We spoke with one person who used the service and four family members, by telephone. We spoke with four members of support staff on the telephone and met the registered manager, a care co-ordinator and the area manager during our visit to the office.
We looked at three care records for people who used the service, three staff files including recruitment, training and supervision records and records relating to the quality assurance of the service.
Updated
16 May 2019
About the service: This service provides care and support to people in their own homes. The service provided personal care to nine people at the time of the inspection.
People’s experience of using this service:
Risks to people’s health and wellbeing were comprehensively assessed with a wholly person-centred approach. Positive risk taking was promoted and used extremely effectively to make sure people were not prevented from taking part in life enhancing activities. Everybody we spoke with said they had absolute trust in the service. One relative of a person who used the service said they would trust their relative’s support worker with their life.
Strong systems were in place to make sure staff were suitable to work with vulnerable people. Staff received appropriate training and they told us the training was good and relevant to their role but said they would appreciate more face to face training. Staff were supported by the management team, but some said they did not receive supervision as regularly as they would like.
People using the service benefited from an extremely caring and responsive service. People we spoke with were unanimous in their praise of the service they received and of the staff. They described staff as “amazing”, “just brilliant” with one relative saying, “They make you feel as though you are the only thing important to them.” A member of staff said, “It’s a privilege to be involved in the lives of the people we support”. All the relatives we spoke with used the word ‘outstanding’ to describe the care and support their family members received.
Imaginative and highly effective systems were in place to make sure people were supported to have as much choice and control of the care and support they received as possible. Care documentation was entirely based around people’s choices and promotion of independence.
Staff knew when and how to access healthcare professionals involved in people’s care. Advice from healthcare professionals was included in care planning.
Care and support plans were developed with an exceptional holistic and person-centred approach. People’s relatives told us staff “couldn’t do enough” and “spent hours” on getting care plans right.
People were supported to explore opportunities to engage in life enhancing social and recreational activities. Relatives told us how staff had made a real difference, not just to the lives of people using the service, but to their whole families.
People told us they would not hesitate to raise any concerns they had about the service and had absolute confidence in the service to manage these well.
There was a registered manager and systems were followed to make sure management was effective. The quality and safety of the service was audited. The registered manager and all staff demonstrated a commitment to continuous improvement of the service.
Rating at last inspection: This was the first inspection of this service since their registration in May 2018.
Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration.
Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk