We inspected this service on 8 and 11 January 2016. The inspection was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in the location offices when we visited.
Personal Support Service is a domiciliary care agency and is registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection Personal Support Service was supporting 64 people who lived in their own flats across four sheltered housing schemes in York. These sheltered housing schemes were owned by City of York Council and people living there, including the people who received care and support from Personal Support Services, were tenants of City of York Council. Personal Support Service had offices at each of these four sheltered housing schemes. However, care workers were not on site 24 hours a day and only provided care and support, to some of the tenants, on a prearranged basis at certain times during the day; this was recorded in people’s care plans. Personal Support Service had no involvement in the running or maintenance of people’s flats or communal areas in the sheltered housing schemes.
Personal Support Service also supported a further 25 people living across York, with care workers visiting them during the night to provide assistance with personal care.
Personal Support Service was registered at a new location in June 2015 and this was the first inspection of the service at this location.
The registered provider is required to have a registered manager in post. On the day of our inspection, the registered manager was in the process of deregistering and a new manager had applied to become the registered manager. The registered manager, however, continued to support the new manager in the running of the service. 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.
During this inspection we found that people’s needs were assessed and risk assessments put in place to keep people using the service safe and prevent avoidable harm.
We observed that care workers received safeguarding training and understood the types of abuse they might see and how to respond to keep people safe. Whilst a recent safeguarding investigation had identified some concerns regarding process and care workers practices, these had been addressed by the registered manager to prevent further risk of harm.
We observed that there were safe recruitment processes and sufficient care workers employed to meet people’s needs. Medication was safely managed and administered and care workers followed guidance on best practice with regards to infection prevention and control.
The registered provider provided an effective induction and on-going training to equip care workers with the skills and experience needed for their roles. Gaps in care workers training had been identified and care workers put forward for refresher training. Care workers received ongoing supervision and support in their roles.
Care workers understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and supported people to make decisions in line with statutory guidance.
People were supported to eat and drink enough and to access healthcare services where necessary.
There were systems in place to support care workers to develop positive relationships with people using the service. Feedback we received confirmed that care workers were kind, caring and supported people to make decisions and have choice and control over their daily lives. People using the service told us that care workers respected their privacy and dignity.
People’s needs were assessed and person centred care plans put in place to enable care workers to provide responsive care and support. The service had a system to manage and respond to compliments and complaints.
People using the service and care workers told us the service was well-led. We could see there was a quality assurance process to monitor the quality of care and support provided. We found records were not always well-maintained and supporting evidence for training, supervisions and observations was not always available.