Archived: Nationwide Care Services Limited (Dudley)

Updated 10 June 2016

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 18 and 19 April 2016 and was unannounced. The inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

We asked the provider to 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. We found that the PIR had not been completed in full and therefore we were not able to use this information when we made the judgements in this report. We looked at the information we held about the service. This included the notifications that the provider had sent us about incidents at the service and information we had received from the public. We also contacted the local authority who monitor and commission services, for information they held about the service. We used this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection.

We spoke with ten staff members, including the branch manager, whilst we were at the office, and four on the telephone. We spoke to the registered manager when he visited the office during the first day of our inspection. We spoke with eight people and three relatives by telephone to gain feedback about their experiences of using this service. We received feedback from one social worker about the care people received. We looked at a sample of records including six people’s care plans, seven staff files and staff training records to identify if staff had the necessary skills and knowledge to meet people’s care needs. We looked at the provider’s records for monitoring the quality of the service to see how they had responded to issues raised.

Updated 10 June 2016

This inspection took place on the 18 and 19 April 2016 and was unannounced. This was because we had received some anonymous concerns about the way the service was being managed so we did not announce our inspection visit with the provider. This was the first inspection since this service was registered July 2015. Nationwide Care Services Limited (Dudley) provides personal care and support to 84 people that live in their own homes.

There was a registered manager in post, but they were not based full time at this location. The registered manager did visit the office during our visit and we did have a brief discussion with him. The service was managed on a daily basis by a branch manager who advised that they were supported by the registered manager. The branch manager was present during 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Recruitment procedures were not robust to ensure all the required information was obtained before people commenced employment.

People did not always receive a reliable and consistent service, as some people had experienced late and missed calls.

The registered manager had failed to meet the requirements of their registration with the Care Quality Commission as we found a number of incidents that had occurred within the service that had not been reported as required.

Quality assurance systems were not effective and had not identified the shortfalls we found during this inspection.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

Staff had received training and knew how to report and deal with issues regarding people’s safety.

People told us they received their medicines as prescribed, but the medicine records were not always completed to demonstrate this.

Risk assessments and care plans had been developed with the involvement of people. People had equipment in place when this was needed, so that staff could assist them safely.

Staff understood that people have the right to refuse care and that they should not be unlawfully restricted.

People received care from staff that were respectful and caring and ensured that people’s privacy and dignity was maintained. People had someone they could talk to if they were not happy about the service they received.

Feedback was sought from relatives about the service provided to their family member.