Updated 10 September 2019
The Inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, 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 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 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
What we did before the inspection
When planning our inspection, we used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We looked at the information we held about the service. This included notifications received from the provider about deaths, accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts, which they are required to send us by law. We also contacted the Local Authority commissioning service and the local Health watch for any relevant information they may have to support our inspection.
During the inspection
During our visit we discussed the care provided with one relative, three members of care staff, the registered manager and the admin support officer.
We looked at the care records of one person who used the service and three staff files, as well as the medicine management processes and records maintained by the provider about recruitment and staff training. We looked at records relating to the management of the service and a selection of the service’s policies and procedures to check people received a quality service.