Updated 4 January 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 checked 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 conducted by one inspector. An expert by experience made telephone calls to people who use the service. 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:
York PA and Student Support Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. Not everyone who uses 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 take into account any wider social care provided. The agency also provides academic support to people who are studying at York University, but that section of the agency is not regulated by CQC.
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 visit because it is small and the manager is sometimes out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
The inspection site visit activity was conducted on 29 November 2018. This included a home visit to one person and a visit to the office location to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. We made telephone calls to people who used the service between 30 November and 3 December 2018.
What we did:
Before our inspection, we looked at information we held about the service. The provider sent us a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed the information we held about the service, such as notifications we had received from the registered manager. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We sought feedback from the local authority contract monitoring team prior to our visit. We used this information to plan the inspection.
During the inspection we spoke with three people who used the service and one relative. We spoke with the registered manager, the provider's nominated individual, the company administrator and three care staff (known as Personal Assistants). We looked at a range of documents and records related to people’s care and the management of the service. We viewed two people's care records, medication records, two staff recruitment, induction and training files and a selection of records used to monitor the quality and safety of the service. We visited one person in their own home to get feedback on the service, observe the care provided and look at the documentation available to staff in people’s homes.