Universal Care services Ipswich

Updated 27 November 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

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 houses and flats.

The service had a registered manager in place.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short notice announcement of this inspection on the morning of our visit. This was to ensure someone would be available in the office to assist the inspection and assess for COVID-19 risks.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service.

During the inspection

Inspection activity began on 3 November 2020 and ended on 10 November 2020.

We spoke with seven people who use the service.

We communicated with seven staff members and four of them provided feedback. We met and spoke with the registered manager and a senior manager supporting them.

We looked at the care records for four people using the service. We looked at a sample of staff recruitment files and records relating to the management of the service.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Updated 27 November 2020

About the service

Carewatch (Ipswich) is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive a regulated activity of personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our visit 71 people were receiving personal care from the service.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were positive about the care and support they received. People liked having the same care staff to support them. They said that staff turned up and did not miss visits, were frequently on time and rarely late. People were provided with a roster of staff who would visit them and therefore they could prepare and plan for visits.

People had benefitted from the considerable work done to revise the routes that staff completed. Staff were able to get from one person to another and arrive at their allocated calls on time as people were expecting and needing them at the scheduled time. People had consistent staff so that they were able to form relationships and develop trust.

People said that they trusted staff and felt safe in their care; staff had received the correct training to keep people safe. One person told us, “Yes I feel safe, they are lovely people and we have a bit of a laugh.”

We found considerable improvement in the delivery of service since our last inspection. Managers had responded well to our concerns and had rectified all breaches of regulation. Management and office staff had changed since our last visit. A new manager had been appointed and registered. We had been regularly updated about improvements made.

Medicines were managed safely. One person told us, “They deal with my medication. They have a cupboard. They never forget to give it to me.” Records were completed and were regularly monitored by managers. Individual risk assessments were in place for people, this included infection prevention and control. People told us that staff always wore aprons, gloves and a mask to prevent the spread COVID-19. This was part of the overall risk assessment completed by the agency in relation to COVID-19.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was inadequate in Safe and Well Led. (published 24 April 2020).

The provider completed an action plan after the last focused inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check the service had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from Inadequate to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Carewatch (Ipswich) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.