Archived: Mears Care - Hingham

Updated 6 November 2015

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.

This inspection took place on 8 and 14 October 2015 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice before we visited the office because the service provides care to people within their own homes. Therefore the provider and staff operate from a central office and we needed to be sure that they would be on the premises so we could talk to them during the inspection. On 8 October two inspectors visited the central office of the service and on 14 October an expert by experience made phone calls to people who used the service to obtain feedback on the care that they received. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection, we requested the provider 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. This was received from the provider. We also reviewed other information that we held about the service. We had requested feedback before the inspection from the local authority safeguarding and quality assurance teams.

During this inspection, we spoke with 18 people who used the service and two relatives of people who received care from Mears Care - Hingham. We also spoke with nine staff, the training manager and the registered manager.

The records we looked at included eight people’s care plans and other records relating to their care and six staff recruitment and training records. We also looked at records relating to how the provider monitored the quality of the service.

Updated 6 November 2015

This was an announced inspection that took place on 8 and 14 October 2015. On 8 October we visited the central office of the service and on 14 October we made phone calls to people who used the service to obtain their feedback on the care that was being provided.

Mears Care - Hingham is a service that provides personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of this inspection there were 192 people using the service.

There is a registered manager working at the service. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People who used the service felt safe when the staff were in their homes and the staff who supported them were kind and caring. Staff respected people’s privacy and dignity and knew the people they provided care for well. People felt listened to by the staff and were able to make decisions about their own care.

There were enough staff to provide people with the care they needed although existing staff were often called upon to cover for staff who were absent. This meant that sometimes they could not meet people’s preferences in relation to what time they wanted their care provided and were not always able to stay with people for as long as they should do.

People received their medicines when they needed them and staff asked them for their consent before providing them with care. The staff acted within the law when providing care to people who were unable to consent to it themselves.

The staff had received enough training to provide people with effective care and they were supported in their role. They understood their individual role and were able to raise any concerns about care practice without fear of recriminations.

The provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service. Where the need for improvements had been identified, action had been taken.