Special People

Updated 10 November 2018

We carried out this inspection 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 is 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.

The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service. We carried out two visits to the agency on 4 and 10 September 2018. This inspection was carried out by one inspector and an expert by experience who telephoned relatives of children using the service. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of domiciliary care service for people with complex care needs.

Before the inspection, the provider completed 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. We also reviewed the information we held about the service including people’s feedback and notifications of significant events affecting the service.

As a part of our inspection we contacted fifteen people, or their relatives, to ask for their views about the service, and received responses from four relatives. We also received feedback from a local authority care manager and four of the eighteen care staff we contacted to ask for their views. We also spoke with the human resources manager, the training manager, a care co coordinator as well as the head of the care co-ordination team who was deputising for the manager whilst they were absent.

We gathered evidence of people’s experiences of the service by conversations we had with their relatives and by reviewing other communication that staff had with these people, their families and other care professionals.

As part of this inspection we reviewed care records of twelve children and adults. We looked at the recruitment and induction records for five care staff employed since our previous inspection. We also looked at training and supervision records for the staff team. We reviewed other records such as complaints information and quality monitoring and audit information.

Updated 10 November 2018

Special People is a care agency that provides care workers to undertake personal and supportive care for infants, children and adults with learning and physical disabilities. The main office for Special People is based in North London although they provide care workers across the London boroughs. There were just over 100 people, mostly children, using the service at the time of this inspection.

At the last inspection on 14 January 2016 the provider met all of the legal requirements we looked at and was rated Good.

At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

At the time of our inspection the provider also acted in the role of the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service and has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider.

From the contact we had with relatives of children using the service and a social care professional we found that there was usually a good and even very high degree of satisfaction with the way the service worked with people. There was confidence in how the agency worked and felt that staff communicated well and were knowledgeable and skilled.

People who used the service, mostly children, but some adults, had a variety of complex support needs and from the twelve care plans that we looked at we found that the information and guidance provided to staff was clear. Any risks associated with people’s care needs were assessed, and the action needed to mitigate against risks was recorded and reviewed regularly.

Care plans were well written, easily accessible and described each person’s individual care and support needs. Preferred methods for communicating and how each person liked to be cared for were described with the appropriate guidance for staff about how to do this was in place.

We looked at the training records of the 29 staff that provided personal care. We saw that in all cases, core training had been undertaken and the type of specialised training they required was tailored to the needs of the people they were supporting. We found that staff appraisals were happening annually.

Care staff respected people’s privacy and dignity and worked in ways that demonstrated this. Staff worked well to ensure people’s preferences were respected, whether they be children or adults.

The provider continued to monitor the quality and performance of the service, seek people’s views and respond to those views, which was evident in the experience of the service that relatives shared with us.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.