Updated 12 December 2019
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 Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
One inspector carried out the inspection.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
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 registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 18 November 2019 and ended on 26 November 2019. We visited the office location on 22 November 2019.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information, we had received about the service since registration. This included looking at information held on our database about the service for example, statutory notifications completed by the registered provider. We also sought feedback from the local authority contracts and commissioning teams 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. This information helps support our inspections. We used all this information to plan our inspection. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
During the inspection
We spoke with four people who used the service and one relative. We spoke with the registered manager, the branch manager, the care-coordinator and three carers.
To gather information, we looked at a variety of records. This included care records related to three people, and medicines administration records. We also looked at information related to the management of the service. This included recruitment records for three staff, audits, policies and procedures and quality assurance documents. We did this to check the management team had oversight of the service and to make sure the service was appropriately managed.