Nottingham DCA

Updated 27 July 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

One inspector carried out 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 and specialist housing.

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

This inspection was announced. We gave the provider 24 hours notice so that someone would be able to meet with us at the office location.

What we did

Before the inspection we reviewed information available to us about this service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse; and we sought feedback from commissioners and professionals who work with the service. We assessed the information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection we spoke with the registered manager, two service managers, two team leaders, and five support staff. We also spoke with six people.

We looked at four people’s care and support records and three staff members records. We looked at records relating to the management of the service. These included accident and incident records, meeting minutes and quality assurance records.

Updated 27 July 2019

About the service

Nottingham DCA service provides care and support to younger people living in their own homes and accommodation. 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. On the day of our visit there were 90 people using the service who had a variety of support needs such as a learning disability, physical disability or mental health condition.

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

Support plans did not reflect that people were involved in their reviews and the use of person centred language could be improved. The use of positive behaviour support plans could also be improved to ensure staff were clear on how to support people when they became distressed. We made a recommendation about this.

People and staff told us they felt safe at the service. People received support to take their medicines safely. Risks to people's well-being were recorded and updated when their circumstances changed. Staffing was provided at safe levels that enabled people to access the community when they chose to with support.

People's rights to make their own decisions were respected. People were supported to access healthcare services if needed. Staff received training according to their preferred learning style and had appropriate skills and knowledge to deliver care and support in a person-centred way.

People told us that staff supported their privacy and helped them with independence and we saw staff offering to help people prepare their evening meals.

Systems to monitor the quality of the care provided were effective. The service had recently experienced some upheaval from a re-structure but the registered manager had a clear vision about the quality of care they wanted to provide. The service worked well with other community partners and there was a focus on reducing isolation and loneliness for people in their own homes.

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

The last rating for this service was good (published 22 December 2016).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.