Archived: Lady Forester Centre

Updated 26 June 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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

One inspector carried out this inspection.

Service and service type:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small, and we needed to be sure the registered manager was available to support us with the inspection process.

Inspection site visit activity took place on 21 May 2019. On this day, we visited the office location to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. In addition, we made telephone calls to people who used the service on 31st May 2019 to find out their experiences of receiving a service.

We reviewed information we held about the service. This included previous inspection reports and notifications submitted by the provider related to incidents, accidents, health and safety and safeguarding concerns which affect the health and wellbeing of people who used the service. We also spoke with Shropshire and Telford local authority contracts and commissioning team, 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 allowed us to gain information related to the quality and safety of service being provided.

Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We reviewed the information submitted by the provider to plan and guide our inspection. We used our planning tool to collate and analyse this information to help us plan our inspection visit.

During the inspection, we spoke with one person and two relatives. We spoke with the two members of care staff, the deputy manager and the registered manager.

To gather information, we looked at a variety of records. This included care records related to one person. We also looked at other information related to the management of the service. We did this to ensure the provider had oversight of the service and to ensure the service was appropriately managed.

Updated 26 June 2019

About the service:

Lady Forester Centre is a domiciliary care service based in Broseley, near Telford. At the time of the inspection it was providing regulated activity to two people aged 65 and over.

People’s experience of using this service:

People and relatives told us people were safe when being supported by the staff from Lady Forester Centre. We saw systems and processes continued to be implemented to keep people safe. Staff were able to identify inappropriate practice and were aware of procedures to report any harm or abuse. Risk was suitably managed and addressed to promote people’s safety and independence. Although systems were implemented, we noted good practice guidance for the safe management of medicines were not always followed. We have made a recommendation about this.

We were told staff were reliable and always completed their rota’d hours. Staff said they were happy with the way their visits were planned and said they were not rushed to complete tasks.

People’s received timely support to ensure their health care needs were met. We received positive feedback from relatives and health professionals. They said people’s health needs were met by staff working for Lady Forester Centre. The registered manager was aware of referring to good practice when planning and delivering care.

People, relatives and health professionals told us staff were kind and caring. They said staff supported families as well as the people receiving the service. The service understood the importance of protecting people’s human rights; dignity, independence and privacy was always considered and promoted.

Consent was consistently achieved. 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.

Everyone we spoke with told us the service was well-led. The management team and staff had clear roles and responsibilities and were committed to ensuring the service provided was good. Staff told us they were adequately supported by the management team and were happy with the training provided.

Managers and staff had a clear vision of what was required of a quality service and ensured this was maintained. Feedback was continuously gained from all parties to develop and improve 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:

At the last inspection the service was rated good (published 03 September 2016).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating. At this inspection visit we found the service remained good.

Follow up:

The next scheduled inspection will be in keeping with the overall rating. We will continue to monitor information we receive from and about the service. We may inspect sooner if we receive concerning information about the service.