Archived: Catherine Care

Updated 25 May 2023

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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in 3 ‘supported living’ settings, so they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was not a registered manager in post. A new manager had been in post for around 3 weeks and had submitted an application to register. We are currently assessing this application.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 27 April 2023 and ended on 4 May 2023. We visited the location’s office on 27 April 2023 and visited people’s homes on 2 May 2023.

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 and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the directors, the new manager, the HR/Training Manager and 5 support workers. We also spoke with 6 people who received support from the service and 4 relatives. One of the directors was also the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We looked at 4 people’s care records and reviewed 4 people’s medicines administration records (MARs). We also viewed three staff files and documentation related to the governance of the service.

The provider sent us further documentation we had requested following the site visit including staff rotas, training records and information from health professionals.

Updated 25 May 2023

About the service

Catherine Care is a supported living service providing personal care to 13 people living in their own homes. The service provides support to autistic people and people living with learning disabilities across 3 houses in Great Wyrley. People receive varying levels of support. The office is located at a separate address.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Quality checks were not always undertaken regularly and consistently. Quality systems in place were not always effective in identifying errors, for example medicines recording errors had not always been identified. Systems were not in place to undergo trends analysis of accidents and incidents to ensure patterns could be identified.

Right Support

People were supported by a sufficient number of staff to meet their needs safely. People were supported by staff who had been safely recruited. The principles of STOMP (stop over medicating people with learning disabilities) were applied when people were prescribed ‘as required’ medicines.

Right Care

People were supported by staff who made them feel safe. Staff had completed safeguarding training and understood how to protect people from abuse. Risk assessments were in place to guide staff how to manage risk to people. Staff ensured people received care in a way that mitigated risk. People were supported by staff who understood how to prevent and control infection.

Right Culture

The provider promoted a person-centred ethos which was disseminated amongst staff and helped to empower people and improve their quality of life. People, relatives and staff were involved in the service and encouraged to provide feedback to improve the quality of care provided. The provider took a reflective approach when things went wrong and took action to reduce the risk of reoccurrence. The new manager had taken immediate action to improve the provider’s systems and people and staff had told us improvements had already been seen. People felt listened to and able to approach the management team.

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 7 March 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the management of medicines and staffing. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the Safe and Well Led sections of this full report.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained as Good.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.