Excellent Health Care

Updated 7 August 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

One inspector carried out this inspection.

Service and service type

Excellent Health Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

The service had two managers 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. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 30 May and ended on 13 June 2019. We visited the office location on 30 May and made telephone calls to people and their relatives on 13 June 2019.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We attempted to speak with 17 people who used the service or their relatives. We were successful at speaking with three people and three relatives about their experience of the care provided. We met the nominated individual during our site visit. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke with both registered managers, the recruitment and training co-ordinator, the human relations officer and the office administrator.

We reviewed a range of records. This included three people’s care records and associated records such as daily notes. We looked at three people’s medicines records. We viewed three staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

Following the inspection, we telephoned and spoke with four care workers.

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at training data and quality assurance records.

Updated 7 August 2019

About the service

Excellent Health Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care in people’s own homes. 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. At the time of the inspection the agency was providing a service to 17 younger and older adults some of whom were living with dementia and some who had a disability.

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

We found that the not all staff recruitment was undertaken in a robust manner because gaps in staff former employment was not thoroughly vetted by the provider. However, all other recruitment checks were undertaken. The provider had recruited enough suitable and trained staff to meet people’s care needs.

People and their relatives spoke very positively about the care they received. They told us that carers always arrived on time. Their comments included, staff were very “friendly” and “caring”. People had person centred care plans that specified how they wanted their care provided. Care plans were reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they were still relevant to the person.

People using the service and their relatives felt safe. The registered manager assessed people prior to offering a placement and put in measures to address any risks to the person.

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

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement. (The report as published on 7 June 2018). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

At the previous inspection there were two breaches of the regulations. Firstly, because provider was not administering medicines in a safe manner at this inspection this had been addressed. Secondly because the provider did not have adequate systems in place to effectively monitor the quality of the service provided. There were now measures in place to assure a good quality service.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Excellent Health Care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.