Care Outlook (Crawley)

Updated 9 July 2021

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:

The inspection team consisted of 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.

Service and service type:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults and younger adults with physical disabilities.

The service did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Registered manager’s and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. However, a manager was in post and was in the process of registering with the CQC.

Notice of inspection:

The inspection was announced. The provider was given short notice of inspection. This was because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we wanted to be sure that someone would be in to speak with us.

What we did:

On this occasion we did not ask the provider to send us the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as incidents and abuse. We used this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection:

We reviewed a range of records. This included three staff recruitment files, training records, accident and incident recording, and records relating to the scheduling of care calls and the management of the service. We also viewed a variety of policies and procedures and quality assurance processes developed and implemented by the provider. We reviewed four people’s care records. We spoke with eight members of staff, including the provider, the manager, and administration and care staff. During our inspection we spoke with six people and two relatives over the telephone.

Updated 9 July 2021

About the service:

Care Outlook (Brighton and Hove) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to approximately 141 people living in their own homes in the community. Care Outlook (Brighton and Hove) supports people with a range of health and social care needs, such as people with a physical disability, sensory impairment or people living with dementia. Support was tailored according to people’s assessed needs within the context of people’s individual preferences and lifestyles to help people to live and maintain independent lives and remain in their homes. 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:

Care Outlook (Brighton and Hove) provides a service to people living in the areas of Brighton and Hove and other parts of Sussex. On the whole, people receiving care in Brighton and Hove were happy with their care. However, people we spoke with living in the mid-Sussex areas were not happy with the care they received. They felt they were treated with kindness by their care workers and they felt safe, however, they did not feel the care received met their needs and preferences. People’s care visits were often late or early and on occasion cut short. Systems for scheduling care visits did not reflect people’s assessed needs or preferences and did not provide continuity of care.

Systems were in place for the recording of incidents and accidents. However, we could not see evidence that incidents and accidents were followed up, monitored and analysed over time to recognise any emerging trends and themes, or to identify how improvements to the service could be made.

The provider had systems of quality assurance to measure and monitor the standard of the service and drive improvement. However, these systems had not ensured the areas of improvement identified at this inspection had been acted upon and prevented.

People’s feedback was mixed in respect to feeling the service was well managed. They did not feel routinely involved in their care, or feel their concerns and issues were acted upon.

The provider was aware of the issues we identified at this inspection and had started to implement improvements.

People’s medicines were managed appropriately and staff followed infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures to keep people safe. Staff told us they felt supported in their roles and said they liked working at the service.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 18 October 2017).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the service providing regular care calls that met people’s needs and preferences. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, responsive and well-led only.

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 changed from Good to Requires Improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe, responsive and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.