Updated 8 February 2020
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 homes.
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 27 January 2020 and ended on 28 January 2020. We visited the office location on 28 January 2020.
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 in making our judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
During our inspection we spoke with three people who used the service. We also spoke with one member of care staff and the registered manager to check that standards of care were being met.
We looked at care records for three 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 carried out to ensure people received a good service.