Archived: Rainbow Trust Children's Charity 2

Updated 30 March 2015

We carried out this inspection at Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity (RTCC) under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 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 Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This was an unannounced inspection that took place on 23 and 24 January 2015 and was carried out by an adult social care inspector. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice of the visit because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be available in the office for the inspection.

Before the inspection we gathered information from a number of sources and reviewed the information we held about the service. We contacted commissioners of the service and three health and social care professionals who were familiar with this service to ask their opinions about the care and support provided.

Before the inspection, we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. They provided this information in good time.

During the inspection we spoke with all five staff working for the service including the registered manager and the parents of 10 of the children using the service and looked at care records and plans. We examined the service’s business plans, staff rosters and caseloads, the training plans and records, staff recruitment files, the policies and procedures in use, minutes of meetings and the quality monitoring and assurance systems in use.

Updated 30 March 2015

This inspection took place on 23 and 24 January 2015. We last inspected the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity in November 2013. At that inspection we found the service was meeting all the regulations that we assessed.

Rainbow Trust Children's Charity (RTCC) is a national organisation. It provides emotional and practical support to children who have life threatening or terminal illnesses within family homes.

The service had a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Parents we spoke with told us that they had confidence in the family support staff to keep their children safe and secure and they had confidence in the support worker’s skills and abilities.

Care plans were in place detailing how those using the service wished to be supported. We saw that families were very involved in making decisions about care and the support needed. Everyone we spoke with who used or came into contact with the service on a professional level had only positive things to say about the rainbow trust Children’s Charity. People praised the “professionalism” of staff and the way the service involved those who used it in all aspects of the service provision.

Safe systems were in place for the recruitment of new staff and for the induction and on going training and development of staff working there. We found that support staff were well supported to undertake regular training relevant to their roles. They were very knowledgeable about their responsibilities to keep people safe and to maintain their confidentiality.

We saw that the caseloads of family support staff were well monitored to prevent them becoming too large and thereby risk affecting the high level of individual care being provided. The caseload was subject to a monthly review by the support workers with the registered manager to make sure support staff could provide individualised care and be responsive to changing needs.

The manager set high standards and was accessible to all those who used the service and to the support staff who told us the manager was “really good”. Families we spoke with who used the service had confidence in the registered manager and felt confident to make suggestions about service provision and put forward ideas and raise any concerns with them.

A wide range of appropriate health and social care services had been included in assessing needs planning and implementing care and accessing support for families with frequent multi-agency meetings taking place. We saw that families needs and preferences were at the centre of all assessments and care planning. Consent was obtained to make any referrals to other professionals or to share relevant information.