21 April 2016
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We undertook this focused inspection on 21 April 2016. We checked the provider had followed their plan and made the improvements they said they would to meet legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Professional Care Support Services Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Professional Care Support Services provides personal care and support to people in their own homes. The people who use the service included older people and people with a learning disability or a physical disability. There were eight people using the service at the time of our inspection. The service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
At this inspection the registered manager had still not reviewed specific risks to people, mainly related to their health conditions and had not put suitable management plans in place for staff to follow to mitigate any identified risks. However, when we raised our concerns with the registered manager they liaised with people, their relatives and health professionals immediately. The following day they had all the required documentation in place which they sent us for reference.
The registered manager had reviewed recruitment information held on file for all staff and outstanding documentation as required by law. This included evidence of checks of criminal records, previous employment and health conditions.
Care workers had a good understanding of their responsibilities in relation to the Mental Capacity Act (2005) such as the need to obtain people's consent before carrying out their care and how to assess if a person lacked capacity regarding a specific decision and how to support them make decisions if they did. This meant staff were working in accordance with legal requirements to protect people's rights in relation to their mental capacity.
The systems in place for the provider to assess, monitor and improve the service were not always effective because they had not always identified and resolved the issues we found at this, and the last inspection. You can see the action we asked the provider to take in relation to this at the back of this report.