Updated 20 December 2019
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 Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
The inspection was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type
The service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses.
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
This inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. As we needed to be sure that the provider or manager would be in the office to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 2 December 2019 and ended on 3 December 2019. We visited the office location on 3 December 2019.
What we did before the inspection
We checked the information we held about the service and the provider. This included notifications the provider had sent to us about incidents at the service. A notification is information about events that by law the registered persons should tell us about. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We also spoke with the local authority before our inspection for feedback on the service. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
During our inspection we spoke with nine people who used the service and five relatives. We also spoke with two members of care staff, a care supervisor, two care coordinators, the registered manager and the nominated individual to gain people's views about the care and to check that standards of care were being met.
We looked at care records for six people. We checked the care they received matched the information in their records. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service, including audits to ensure people received a safe and effective service.