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Audley Care Ltd - Audley Care Chalfont Dene

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Chalfont Dene, Rickmansworth Lane, Chalfont St Peter, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, SL9 0LX (01494) 877402

Provided and run by:
Audley Care Ltd

Important: This service was previously registered at a different address - see old profile

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 31 May 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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection was carried out by an inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience (EXE) is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their area of expertise was care of older people. They made telephone calls to people and their relatives.

Service and service type:

Audley Care Ltd - Audley Care Chalfont Dene is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. Some people live within the Audley Care retirement village and have access to the care team 24-Hours a day for emergencies. For instance, if they have fallen and require support. It provides a service to mainly older and younger adults with a range of physical and mental health conditions. The service is not registered to provide support to children.

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:

We gave the service 5 days’ notice of the inspection site visit because we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be available to support the inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started on 7 May 2019 and ended on 14 May 2019. We visited the office location on 7 and 10 May 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures. On the 14 May 2019 we reviewed evidence sent to us from the service. The EXE made telephone calls to people and their relatives on the 10 May 2019.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection we requested and received a Provider Information Return (PIR). Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. Throughout the inspection we gave the provider and registered manager opportunities to tell us what improvements they had planned.

We reviewed notifications and any other information we had received since the last inspection. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

When at the office we spoke with the registered manager, regional operational manager, two office staff and one senior carer. During the course of the inspection we visited three people and their relatives who lived in the retirement village. We spoke with six people and six relatives on the telephone. We reviewed three people’s care records in detail and a further two to look at medicine management. We looked at four staff recruitment and training records. We read incident and accident records. We reviewed records held by the service about calls visits and monitoring of the quality of the service. Following the site visit we sent emails to 13 staff and three relatives to seek further feedback.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 31 May 2019

About the service:

Audley Care Ltd - Audley Care Chalfont Dene is a domiciliary care service which provides support to people living in their own home. The office is located within the Audley Chalfont Dene retirement village. At the time of our inspection 25 people received assistance with the regulated activity of personal care. It supported people living in the retirement village and within the wider area of Slough and High Wycombe. Audley Care Ltd - Audley Care Chalfont Dene also supported people with non-regulated activities such as housework, laundry, social and shopping.

People’s experience of using this service:

People and their relatives gave us positive feedback about their experience. Comments included “As far as I'm concerned I'm well looked after. They are caring, thoughtful and respectful, they are like a friend to me,” “They are extremely caring, reliable and always on time I couldn't wish for better. They can't do enough for me,” “I have to say I think their care is exceptional, awesome,” “Yes, the carers are very kind to mum. Very polite and pleasant.” and “They’re very willing to help.”

People told us they had developed good working relationships with staff. Staff demonstrated a commitment to deliver a high-quality service. People were treated with dignity and respect.

People were supported by staff who had been recruited safely. Staff received initial training and on-going support to ensure they held the right skills and attributes to work with people.

People received a personalised service; each person had a care plan which was reviewed regularly to ensure it was accurate and up to date.

People were safeguarded from abuse. Staff were knowledgeable about how to recognise signs of abuse and had confidence to report any concerns.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The service worked in partnership with other agencies such as healthcare professionals and the local authority. The registered manager kept their own learning up to date and attended local forums to share good practices.

The registered manager and provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service.

Rating at last inspection:

The previous inspection was carried out on 16 and 18 April 2018 (Published on 25 May 2018). The service was rated requires improvement at the time.

Why we inspected:

The inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received. At the last inspection we found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and one breach of the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. We asked the service to send us an action plan to detail how they intended to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Inspections will be carried out to enable us to have an overview of the service, we will use information we receive to inform future inspections.

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