Care 24 (UK) Limited

Updated 29 August 2020

The inspection

This was a focused inspection to check whether the provider had met legal requirements following the inspection in April 2019 where breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) 2014 Regulations were identified relating to Safe Care and Treatment, Need for Consent and Good Governance. Two key questions were inspected; ‘Is the Service Safe?’ and ‘Is the Service Well-Led?’

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

Care 24 (UK) Limited is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people in their homes. CQC regulates the care provided by the agency. The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality

Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

We gave 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we wanted to review documentation remotely and make arrangements to speak with people and staff prior to our site visit. This helped minimise the time we spent in face to face contact with the management team.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authorities with whom the service works. We reviewed the information the provider had sent us in their provider information return (PIR). The PIR gives some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

During the inspection, we visited the office location on 11 August 2020 to see the registered manager and to review medication records and care records. We reviewed three people's care records and two staff files around staff recruitment. Records relating to the management of the service and a variety of policies and procedures developed and implemented by the provider were also reviewed. Via telephone calls on the 11 August we spoke with five staff members and on the 12 August 2020 we spoke with 10 people and one person’s relative.

We reviewed a range of records. This included three people’s care records and multiple health and safety records. We looked at two staff records in relation to recruitment. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at quality assurance records.

Updated 29 August 2020

About the service

Care 24 (UK) Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care and support to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection 54 people received personal care.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any

wider social care provided.

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

Improvements had been made following the previous inspection in April 2019. Safe medicine practices had been introduced to help ensure people received their medicines safely. The provider implemented a new recruitment procedure to ensure staff had been safely recruited.

The registered manager monitored the quality of the service to make sure they delivered a high standard of care. People and family members spoke positively about the quality of the service. Staff said they were comfortable raising any concerns and the management team were approachable. People and their relatives were able to feedback on the quality of the service.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 18 April 2019). 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.

Why we inspected

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service in April 2019. Breaches of legal requirements were found and we served requirement notices for Regulations 12, 17 and 19. We undertook this focused inspection to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care 24 (UK) Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.