17 May 2016
During a routine inspection
After the inspection in October 2015, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet the regulations in relation to each breach. They told us they would complete all actions by the end of January 2016. At this inspection, in May 2016, we found that the provider had not completed their plan of action and legal requirements were still not met. We also found additional breaches.
Comfort Call-Leeds is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the Leeds and Kirklees area. At the time of the inspection there was a registered manager in post. 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.
Medicines were not managed consistently and safely. Safe medicine administration practices were not followed so people were not protected against the risks of unsafe management of medicines. Although staff had received training in managing medicines, this had not given staff the required competency to manage medicines safely. People had not always received their medicines as prescribed, resulting in potential harm.
The provider’s systems to monitor and assess the quality of service provision were not effective. Actions that had been identified to improve the service were not always implemented and the provider’s quality monitoring systems had failed to identify significant concerns.
People did not always receive their care and support as planned as staff had missed some people’s calls and did not always spend the agreed time on the calls; cutting them short if they did not have enough time to get from one call to the next. Where people had regular care staff they spoke highly of them. However, people told us they did not have consistent staff at weekends and this meant they had calls from staff they were not familiar with and who did not know their needs.
There were not always effective systems in place to respond appropriately to complaints and comments made by people who used the service or people acting on their behalf. People who used the service were not confident that their comments and complaints were always listened to and dealt with effectively.
Staff training records showed staff had completed a range of training; however full records of induction training were not available to show this had been completed thoroughly. Staff knew what to do to make sure people were safeguarded from abuse and any risks were managed to ensure people’s safety.
Staff were able to demonstrate the different ways in which they helped to protect people’s privacy and dignity and could describe the individual needs of people who used the service.
We found a number of breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) regulations 2014. You can see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.