Updated 17 January 2020
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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
One inspector undertook this inspection.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.
Due to the size of the service, they did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission, however the nominated individual was in day to day charge of the service. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. This means that they 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 the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 12 November and ended on 20 November. We visited the office location on 15 November 2019.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information we had received about the service since its’ registration. We reviewed notifications received from the service before the inspection. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. This enabled us to ensure we were addressing any potential areas of concern. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. 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 took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We made contact with one person who used the service and one relative about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with three members of staff including the provider, the nominated individual and the branch manager. We also made contact with three care workers.
We reviewed a range of records. This included four people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at two staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. We saw the training records in relation to all seven members of care staff. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.