Woodhall Care Services Ltd

Updated 1 November 2022

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 was carried out by an inspector and an Expert by Experience (EXE). An EXE 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.

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 a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 23 August 2022 and ended on 06 October 2022. We visited the location’s office on 21 September 2022.

What we did before the inspection

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 reviewed information we had received about the service since registration. We sought feedback from the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people and 11 relatives by telephone. We spoke with 12 members of staff. This included, nine members of the care staff, registered manager, medication administration officer and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records. This included five people's care records, medication administration records and the daily notes recorded by care staff. We looked at staff files in relation to recruitment, supervision and training. We also viewed a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures and training records.

Updated 1 November 2022

About the service

Woodhall care Services Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people in their own homes in the community. At the time of our inspection there were 190 people using the service.

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 and what we found

People and relatives told us the care received was safe. The systems in place for risk monitoring, managing safeguarding concerns, incidents and accidents were effective and had been updated following recent feedback. One person told us “I feel safe because I know them ‘cos they are regular.” Staff deployment met people's needs and people's medicines were managed safely.

At the time of inspection, the provider was implementing a new electronic care record system and care plans, risk assessments and daily notes recording were being reviewed and updated as part of this process.

The service was well led. The registered manager and nominated individual responded to feedback, ensuring lessons learnt were being used to improve the service. The culture within the service demonstrated inclusion of peoples’ diverse backgrounds.

There were systems in place to monitor that people received safe and good quality care. People, their relatives and staff had good experiences of the service and could contribute to further improvement within 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 requires improvement (published 25 September 2019).

A targeted inspection (published 02 October 2020), to check whether the provider had made improvement in relation to Regulation 17 (good Governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulation 2014, found the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

The overall rating for the service had not changed following this targeted inspection and remained requires improvement. Targeted inspections do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to safe delivery and management of the service. 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 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 changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Woodhall Care Services Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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