Care at Home (Midlands) Ltd

Updated 9 December 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

This inspection was carried out by two inspectors, an assistant inspector, and two experts-by-experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

Care at Home (Midlands) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service had two managers 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

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. This was because it is a large service operating during the pandemic and we needed to be sure that the provider and registered managers would be available to support the inspection.

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.

During the inspection

We spoke by telephone to 23 people using the service, 16 relatives, five care workers, the provider, and one of the registered managers.

We reviewed an extensive range of records online. This included care and medicines records, staff recruitment and training files, and records related to the management and quality assurance of the service. Throughout our inspection we continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Updated 9 December 2020

About the service

Care at Home (Midlands) is a service that provides personal care to people in their own home. At the time of our inspection approximately 150 people were using the service.

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.

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

People and relatives said the staff provided safe, good quality care. They told us the staff were caring, efficient and kind and they got on well with them. A relative said, “Everyone is very friendly, all of them start talking the minute they come through the door [and] they all make sure it is a safe and nice and comfortable routine for [family member].”

People were risk assessed when they began using the service and staff knew how to keep them safe. Staff provided personalised care and were knowledgeable about people's preferences as to how they wanted their care provided.

Some people and relatives were satisfied with the timelines of their calls, but others said staff were late on occasions. The provider said the service had done it’s best to get to people on time during the COVID-19 pandemic and staff would continue to strive to be as punctual as possible.

Staff protected people from the spread of infection. They were trained in infection prevention and control and used the required personal protective equipment including masks, gloves, aprons and visors as necessary. The provider kept staff up to date with any improvements or changes to infection control policies and procedures.

The provider audited all aspects of the service to help ensure people were receiving good quality, safe care. During the Covid-19 pandemic, people’s, relatives’ and staff’s views were collected by phone. The staff worked in partnership with local health and social care professionals to ensure people accessed services they were entitled to.

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 requires improvement (published 14 May 2019). At this inspection we found improvements had been made.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check the provider continued to meet legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has improved 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 Care at Home (Midlands) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.