About the servicePeepal Care is a small domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. The service mainly caters for the Gujarati community and some of the care workers are live-in carers as well. At the time of the inspection, the service provided care to nine people. 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
There was a lack of oversight of medicines management, and we could not be assured that people were receiving their medicines as prescribed. We found a breach of regulation in respect of this.
Feedback from one person who received care from the service and relatives we spoke with indicated that they were satisfied with the care provided by the agency. They were complimentary about care workers and the service and raised no concerns. They said care workers were caring, patient and respectful.
Systems were in place to help ensure people were protected from the risk of abuse. There were appropriate policies in place. People were protected from abuse by staff who understood how to identify and report any abuse concerns.
Assessments were carried out to ensure people's needs could be met. Where risks were identified, there was guidance in place for staff to ensure that people were safe.
There were appropriate numbers of suitably skilled staff available to meet people's needs. Feedback indicated that care workers were punctual and there were no concerns in respect of this.
People received care and support from the same team of care workers. This maintained consistency and ensured that staff knew people and could build friendly professional relationships with people. People and relatives spoke positively about this aspect of the service.
The provider had systems in place to record and respond to accidents and incidents in a timely manner. Lessons learnt were used as opportunities to improve the quality of service.
Staff followed appropriate infection control practices.
Staff had the knowledge and experience to support people's needs. They were supported through induction, training and supervision to ensure they performed their roles effectively.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
The service had clear procedures for receiving, handling and responding to comments and complaints. Feedback obtained from one person who received care and relatives indicated that they had no complaints about the service but knew what to do if they needed to raise a complaint or concern.
There were systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service provided. The service had a comprehensive system in place to obtain feedback from people about the quality of the service they received through regular telephone monitoring. This enabled the service to continuously monitor the effectiveness of the service.
The registered manager promoted transparency, communication, honesty and was approachable. This was confirmed by care workers we spoke with.
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was Good (published 17 February 2017).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.
Enforcement
We have identified a breach in relation to the safe management of medicines at this inspection.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this 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 return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk