Archived: Mayfair Homecare-Trellis House

Updated 9 May 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

• This inspection was carried out by one 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 had knowledge of supporting people with dementia care.

Notice of inspection:

• We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be available on the day of inspection.

Service and service type:

• This service is a home care agency. The service provides care and support to people living in their own flats within Trellis House. There is an extra care housing service that also offers communal facilities for dining and activities. CQC does not regulate the premises provided as communal facilities; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

• This service provides personal care to older people who may be living with dementia, have a learning disability, be physically disabled or have mental health care needs.

• 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.

What we did:

• We asked the service to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is 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 looked at information we held about the service including notifications they had made to us about important events.

• We visited the service on 7 March 2019 and spoke with nine people living in their own home and their two relatives. We spoke with two staff members, a team leader, the registered manager, and the care services manager. After our inspection, we received feedback from one healthcare professional.

• We reviewed five people’s care records, two people’s medicines records, three staff files, training records, quality assurance reports and other relevant documents relating to the service.

Updated 9 May 2019

Mayfair Homecare-Trellis House is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in self contained flats within Trellis House. People were free to leave the building at any time they wanted to. Some people supported by Mayfair Homecare-Trellis House did not receive a regulated activity from the service. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’, which includes help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

At the time of the inspection, the service was providing personal care to 30 older adults aged 64 and over.

People’s experience of using this service:

• The service was not consistently safe. Risks to people's health and safety were not sufficiently assessed to ensure safe care. This was a breach of Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

• The service was not consistently well-led. There were no robust quality assurance processes in place to monitor the quality of the services provided for people, including accuracy of care records. We made a recommendation about this.

• Staff were not supported to up-date their knowledge and skills in all areas required for their role. We made a recommendation about this.

• People’s received the necessary support to manage their medicines as prescribed, but staff were not provided with guidelines on how to support people to take PRN (‘as required’) medicines safely.

• The staff team were trained and applied the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) principles in practice as necessary.

• Processes were followed to review and monitor staff’s developmental needs.

• Staff had to undertake appropriate checks before they were employed by the service.

• Systems were in place to provide immediate support to people if staff had noticed people being at risk to harm or when incidents and accidents took place.

• Staff aided people if they required support to prepare their meals or attend to their health needs.

• People were treated with dignity and kindness and staff were respectful towards people’s privacy.

• Staff encouraged people’s independence and decision making about their daily activities.

• Care plans included personal information about people.

• People provided feedback about the quality of the services they received.

• Staff received guidance on how to support people at the end of their lives.

• People felt that the registered manager was responsive to their care needs.

• There was a clear management structure in place with shared responsibilities to ensure good care delivery for people.

Rating at last inspection:

• The service was previously inspected on 11 October 2016 and was given a rating of Good in all key questions.

Why we inspected:

• This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

• We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspection will be planned in line with our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect the service sooner.

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