Cherish UK Ltd

Updated 21 March 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 was undertaken by 2 inspectors 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. Two inspectors visited the service on day 1 and an expert by experience spoke with people who used the service and relatives by telephone. On day 2 an inspector spoke with staff and relatives of people who used the service by telephone.

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

This inspection was announced. 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 2 March 2023 and ended on 3 March 2023. We visited the location’s office on 2 March 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. 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

With their permission we spoke with 6 people using the service and 8 relatives via telephone. We also spoke with 10 staff including; support workers, the registered manager and the operations manager. We reviewed a range of records, including risk assessments and care records, records relating to medicines, staff recruitment, training, accident and incidents, complaints and safeguarding logs. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits, monitoring and policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 21 March 2023

About the service

Cherish UK Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. 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. At the time of the inspection the service was providing personal care to 120 people.

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

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

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. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

Right Support: People were supported within their own homes, and for some people, in the wider community. Promoting and maintaining people’s choice and independence was important to all staff we spoke with.

Right Care: Managers and staff placed great importance on providing person centred care and support, that was based on what was important to and for the person.

Right Culture: There was a culture of compassion and respect for people who used the service. Staff spoke about people in caring and kind ways.

We found improvements had been made and there was an ongoing programme of recruitment, but we received mixed feedback from people about staffing and call timings. The provider had introduced an electronic system which alerted managers to any late or missed calls. Electronic records indicated calls were usually within allowances of commissioned care. Staff told us calls were well organised and they had sufficient time to provide people with the care and support they needed. Staff training now included some condition specific training relevant to the needs of people staff were supporting. This was still being developed further to reflect individuals conditions and needs. All required checks had been undertaken prior to staff commencing employment. Staff had received training in safeguarding people from abuse and medicines administration. Risks to individuals, staff and within people’s homes were identified and well managed.

The service was well managed. There was a range of detailed quality monitoring, auditing and oversight. Senior managers for the provider had oversight of the service and all quality monitoring. The registered manager and operations manager told us told us they would seek people’s views about issues raised during our inspection regarding staff deployment and consistency. Staff were very positive about the registered manager and working for the service. There was an appropriate system in place to manage complaints raised. Statutory notifications are reports of certain changes, events and incidents that the registered providers must notify us about that affect their service or the people who use it. Notifications to CQC had been made as required.

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 19 June 2021).

At our last inspection we recommended that the provider consider condition specific training, continued to review staffing levels and staff deployment and reviewed audit processes to ensure they were robust and identified areas for improvement. At this inspection we found the provider had acted on any recommendations and improvements had been made. However, we have made a recommendation about gathering and responding to people’s feedback about their experiences of the service provided.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check the provider had acted on our recommendations and to confirm they met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements. 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. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Cherish UK Ltd 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.