Social Care 4U

Updated 27 April 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

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats and specialist housing.

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

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 24 February 2023 and ended on 21 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. The provider was not asked to complete a 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

We spoke to the registered manager and director of the service, referred to as the “management team” within this report. We spoke to 3 staff and 2 people who use the service. We viewed 5 staff files including recruitment records and 3 care records including associated risk assessments. We also viewed documents relating to the management of the service.

Updated 27 April 2023

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.

About the service

Social Care 4U is a domiciliary care agency. The service provides support to older adults, autistic people, people with a learning disability, people living with dementia, people detained under the mental health act, mental health, people with a physical disability, younger disabled adults and children. At the time of our inspection there were 3 people using the service.

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

Right support

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.

People’s needs were assessed before they began to use the service. Details of the health professionals working with people was recorded and health appointments and communication was shared between them. People had risk assessments in place to protect them from the risk of harm and these were regularly reviewed.

People using the service told us they felt safe with staff. People liked their team of care staff and had confidence they would always have care at the times they required it.

There were enough staff to provide safe care and support to people using the service. Staff had been recruited to the service safely. The service had effective systems in place to monitor recruitment records and to ensure staff working at the service had the relevant documents to work within adult social care.

People’s independence was supported and encouraged to enable people to feel in control of their lives while knowing staff support was available when needed.

Right Care

People’s care plans were personal to them and people’s preferences were documented and respected. People’s communication needs were clearly stated and the service used technology to support people’s communication. People were included in all aspects of their care and supported to make decisions about their daily lives as much as possible.

Staff were aware of their safeguarding responsibilities and knew the processes to follow if they were not satisfied with responses from the management team or needed to whistle blow.

Medicines were managed safely at the service. Staff kept people safe from the risks of acquiring an infection and wore appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). Staff were supported with training in end of life care and support.

Right culture

People and staff were pleased with the management of the service and felt well supported by the registered manager and director. People told us staff were kind and understanding. Staff enjoyed working with people and respected people’s privacy and dignity.

Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service to ensure the care people received was of a high quality. The management team encouraged staff to have high standards and this was reflected in the feedback from people using the service. The views of people, relatives, staff and health professionals was requested and acted upon.

Staff received training to support them in their role and regular individual and group supervision.

People were supported to eat and drink enough to stay healthy. People’s consent to care was requested before care was provided. People knew how to make a complaint and the service had a complaints policy and procedure.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 14 June 2019) and there were breaches of the regulations. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do, and by when, to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

At our last inspection we made 2 recommendations, that the provider seek guidance on assessing people’s needs and end of life care support. At this inspection we found the provider had acted on our recommendations and improvements were made.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.