Updated 11 April 2019
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 was completed by one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of domiciliary care service. Their role involved talking with people using the service and their families on the phone.
Service and service type:
This domiciliary care agency provided support with activities regulated by the Care Quality Commission to 18 people at the time of this inspection. 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. At the time of the inspection the registered manager for this service was working at another of the provider’s services. The day to day management of the service was being managed by a registered manager from another of the provider’s services. We have referred to this person in this report as the interim manager.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the interim manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
What we did
Before the inspection:
• We checked for any notifications made to us by the provider and the information we held on our database about the service and provider. Statutory notifications are pieces of information about important events which took place at the service, such as safeguarding incidents, which the provider is required to send to us by law.
• We reviewed the Provider Information Record (PIR). The PIR provides key information about the service, what the service does well and the improvements the provider plans to make.
• We also reviewed the action plan sent to us following the last inspection. This set out the actions the service planned to take to address the breaches of the regulations we found.
During the inspection visits to the office on 4 & 6 March 2019:
• We looked at three staff recruitment records.
• We looked at seven care records including risk assessments and medicines administration records.
• We spoke with four care staff, a care manager, the interim manager and the service manager.
• We looked at supervision, training, accidents and incidents, complaints and compliments.
• We looked at management processes to audit the quality of the service.
After the inspection visits:
• We telephoned two people who used the service and six relatives to get their feedback.
• We were sent additional management documentation including auditing information and updated risk assessments following the inspection.