IECC CARE

Updated 24 October 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by 1 lead inspector with the support of 2 team inspectors. 2 Experts by Experience also supported the inspection. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Supported Living:

This service provides care and support to people living in 7 ‘supported living’ settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. However, people’s care and housing may not be sufficiently provided under separate contractual agreements in 6 of these services. CQC is reviewing this. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced. We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 21 June 2023 and ended on 25 July 2023. We visited the location’s office on 21 June 2023 and 19 July 2023.

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 authority and professionals who work with the service. The provider did not complete the required Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about the service, what it does well and improvements they plan to make.

We used information gathered as part of monitoring activity that took place on 2 March 2023 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 28 people who used the service or their relatives. We spoke with 15 members of staff including the registered manager.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 11 people’s care records and medication records. We looked at staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed. We looked at training data and quality assurance records. We asked the service to provide us with information electronically. We also spoke with stakeholders.

Updated 24 October 2023

About the service

IECC Care is a large domiciliary care agency which also operates 7 supported living services. The service provides support to adults and younger adults living in their own home. 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. At the time of our inspection there were 147 people using the service.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

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

Right Support: The model of care and setting did not maximise people’s choice, control and independence. The provider was not aware of right support, right care, right culture and was signposted to review this on the CQC website.

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

Right Care: Care was not person-centred and did not promote people’s dignity, privacy and human rights.

Right Culture: The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff did not ensure people using services led confident, inclusive and empowered lives.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 22 April 2020). At this inspection we found there were breaches of regulation and the provider is now rated as inadequate.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. The inspection started as a focused inspection but was opened out to a comprehensive inspection due to concerns identified.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment, safe care and treatment, fit and proper persons employed, staffing, person-centred care, receiving and acting on complaints, notification of events to CQC and good governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded. The representations process regarding the warning notice served against a Regulation 17 breach is now concluded and the representations were not upheld.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Special Measures:

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions of their registration.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.