Background to this inspection
Updated
28 February 2019
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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 service is a domiciliary care agency. It is registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes. This comprehensive inspection was carried out by two inspectors and was announced. We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice to ensure that someone would be available to assist us during the inspection.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at information received from the local authority commissioners and the statutory notifications the provider had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us. Commissioners are people who contract care and support services paid for by the local authority. Following a visit by the local authority commissioners on 25 October 2018 the commissioners stopped referring people who received local authority funding, to the service. This was because of concerns about the quality monitoring of the service provided This included inconsistence in record management, analysis of trends around call durations, and failure to follow own Quality assurance processes. At the time of the inspection the provided has provided the local authority a action plan in response to the concerns raised. We spoke with the local authority who advised that a monitoring visit will take place to assess compliance with the action plan. Following our visit we were informed by the local authority that the provider had completed the action required.
The office visit took place on 14 January 2019 and was announced. We told the provider we were coming so they could arrange to be there and arrange for care staff to be available to talk with us about the service. Before the office visit we asked the provider for a list of people who used the service. This was so we could contact people by phone to ask them their views of the service. We contacted 16 people by telephone, 10 agreed to speak with us. We used this information to help make a judgement about the service.
During our visit we spoke with the operations manager, the registered manager, and held a group discussion with six staff. We also spoke with four staff on the telephone following our visit. We reviewed four people’s care records to see how their care and support was planned and delivered. We looked at three staff recruitment files, staff training records, records of complaints, and records associated with the provider's quality monitoring systems.
Updated
28 February 2019
Seva Care is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people living in their own home. At the time of this inspection visit they provided 218 people with personal care.
At the last comprehensive inspection on the 10 August 2016 we rated the service as good in the five key questions. Is the service Safe, Effective, Responsive, Effective, Caring and Well led. At this inspection we found improvement was required in Well led, with the overall rating remaining as ‘Good'
Following a visit from the local authority commissioners to the service in October 2018, the local authority stopped referring people to the service because improvements were required. The provider is currently working with the commissioners to make those improvements.
This inspection took place on the 14 January 2019 and was announced. We told the provider we were coming so they could arrange to be there and arrange for staff to be available to talk with us about the service.
The provider’s quality monitoring system included asking people for their views about the quality of the service. The systems in place for monitoring the service provided, had not identified the shortfalls found during this inspection and improvement was required.
A requirement of the provider’s registration is that they have a registered manager. There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. 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.
People who used the service felt safe with staff that supported them. Procedures were in place to keep people safe and manage identified risks to people’s care. Staff completed training in safeguarding adults and understood their responsibilities to protect people from abuse and harm. The provider conducted pre-employment checks prior to staff starting work, to ensure they were suitable to support people who used the service.
People who required support to take medicines were supported by staff that had been trained to administer them safely. Staff used protective clothing, such as disposable gloves and aprons when providing personal care, to reduce the risk of infection being passed from one person to another.
People had an assessment completed at the start of their service to make sure staff could meet their care and support needs. There were enough trained staff to allocate all the visits people required and to meet people's needs safely. When needed, arrangements were in place to support people to have enough to eat and drink and remain in good health.
People's right to make their own decisions about their care were supported by managers and staff who understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act. Staff respected decisions people made about their care and gained permission before they assisted people.
People told us staff were kind and treated them with respect. Staff we spoke with knew the people they visited well, and spoke about people in a caring and considerate manner.
People said staff stayed long enough to provide the care agreed in their care plan and did not rush them. Care plans were personalised and provided information for staff about people’s care needs and the details of what they needed to do on each call. The registered manager and office staff were in regular contact with people, or their relatives, to check the care provided was what people needed and expected.
People knew how to complain, and information about making a complaint was available for people. People knew who the managers were and felt they listened to them and dealt with any concerns they had.
Staff felt supported to do their work effectively and said the managers were approachable and available. There was an ‘out of hours’ on call system which ensured support and advice was always available for staff.
Staff had regular supervision and observations of their practice to make sure they carried out their role safely. The management team and office staff, worked well together and were clear about their roles and responsibilities.