Baxters Homecare

Updated 8 September 2017

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.

This was a comprehensive inspection.

Our inspection took place on 14 August 2017 and was announced. We gave the service 48 hours notice of our inspection because the management team were often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be available for our inspection.

The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector and an Expert 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. The Expert by Experience conducted telephone interviews with people who used the service. They also spoke with some relatives.

We reviewed information we already held about the service. This included previous notifications we had received. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We also checked information held by Companies House and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Prior to our inspection, we sent 29 surveys to people who used the service, relatives or friends of people, staff and community healthcare professionals. We received seven responses. At our inspection, we spoke with the registered manager. After our inspection, we spoke with three people who used the service and four relatives. We also received feedback from four community healthcare professionals who work with the service.

We looked at seven people’s care records, two staff personnel files and other records about the safe management of the service and quality of care. After the inspection, we asked the registered manager to send us further documents and we received and reviewed this information.

Updated 8 September 2017

Our inspection took place on 14 August 2017 and was announced.

Baxters Homecare was established in 2016 and provides a care at home service to younger and older adults in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey. The service has a particular interest in the care of people with life-limiting conditions. Only personal care is regulated by us, and our inspection has excluded evidence about other support types offered by the service. At the time of our inspection, the service provided care to about eight people. There were approximately eight staff.

The service must have 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 the time of our inspection there was a registered manager.

This is our first inspection of the service since their change in registration with us. The service changed their regulated activities since our last inspection.

We found people were protected against abuse or neglect. People had personalised risk assessments tailored to their support requirements. We saw sufficient staff were deployed to provide people’s support. People’s medicines were safely managed.

Staff received very good induction, training, supervision and support. This ensured their knowledge, skills and experience were appropriate for their caring roles. Staff set themselves goals about people’s care and these were regularly reviewed to see how staff could further improve their development. The service used nationally-recognised methods of assessing, managing and monitoring people’s end of life care.

We saw people’s consent was obtained before care packages commenced. People were sometimes supported with their nutrition and hydration.

Staff at Baxters Homecare were very caring. The service had received multiple compliments about the care received. We found people’s care was dignified and staff maintained people’s privacy.

The service had appropriately considered communication barriers in the provision of personal care and implemented strategies to ensure people and their relatives could have effective conversations with staff in line with the Accessible Information Standard. People had appropriate care plans in place which were regularly reviewed. We found the plans contained detailed information relevant to each person who used the service. There was an appropriate complaints system in place and the registered manager handled any concerns promptly.

The service was well-led. There was a positive workplace culture and staff felt that management listened to what they had to say. We saw the management used tools to measure the safety and quality of care. The service had developed strong relationships with the social and healthcare community in the area.