Apex Prime Care - Southampton

Updated 20 October 2022

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 completed by two inspectors and three Experts by Experience. 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.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there were two registered managers in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short notice period of the inspection so that people could consent to take part in the inspection by giving us feedback by phone.

Inspection activity started on 23 September 2022 and ended on 10 October 2022. We visited the location’s office on 23 September and 6 October 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We sought feedback from the local authority. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke to 42 people and relatives via telephone to gain feedback about their care. We spoke to 15 staff including, the two registered managers, office staff and care staff. We also spoke with three health and social care professionals.

We reviewed records relating to people’s care and the running of the service. These included care records for 16 people, two staff recruitment files, audits, policies, incident reports, quality assurance records and medicines administration records.

Updated 20 October 2022

About the service

Apex Prime Care - Southampton is a home care service providing personal care to people in their own home. The service provides support to older adults who may be living with dementia, a physical disability, sensory impairment or mental health diagnosis. At the time of our inspection there were 319 people using the service.

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.

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

People and their relatives were happy with the quality of care provided and felt safe receiving care from staff. They told us they received a consistent service from competent staff who were knowledgeable about their needs. The provider had systems in place to mitigate risks related to the delivery of care and contingencies in place to help ensure the service ran safely in the event of an emergency. The provider had effective procedures to identify, report and analyse incidents to reduce the risk of reoccurrence, promoting people’s safety and wellbeing.

People told us that the service was well-led and that management staff were professional and approachable. There were clear governance structures in place which helped ensure senior staff understood their role and were given support to work effectively. There were systems in place to monitor the quality and safety of the care provided, which included gaining people’s feedback. The provider was focussed on making continuous improvements through investing in new systems and developing existing processes. They worked in partnership with external stakeholders to promote people’s safety and independence.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for the service was good. (published 7 July 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has remained good based on the findings of this inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.