Home Instead South East Northumberland

Updated 17 February 2024

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 team consisted of 1 inspector and an Expert 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 provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

The 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.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection, including notifications of significant events. We contacted the local authority to ask for feedback. We used the information the provider had 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We reviewed a range of records. These included electronic care records for 5 people and staff records. We reviewed a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits, incident reports, safeguarding information, rota planning and policies. We spoke with 6 people who used the service and 6 relatives. We contacted 6 more care staff via email. We sought feedback via email and telephone calls from 5 external health and social care professionals.

Updated 17 February 2024

About the service

Home Instead South East Northumberland is a is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service supports older people, including people living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 60 people receiving the regulated activity of personal care.

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 the service and what we found

People felt safe. They spoke of the consistency and reliability of carers, who always arrived on time, stayed for the duration of the call, and had their wellbeing and safety as their top priority.

The registered manager had successfully rolled out an electronic care records system. This was working well and made access to information more efficient for staff and relatives.

Care calls and staff rotas were well planned and monitored. Systems were in place to assure staff competence, ensuring people received care and support, for example with their medicines, from staff who were well trained. The registered manager had comprehensively reviewed medicines administrations practices to ensure they were as safe as practicable.

The service was exceptionally well-led. The focus on high quality person-centred care was clearly embedded, driven by the registered manager, and shared by all staff.

The culture was open and supportive. Staff felt passionate about the work they did and were consistent in their praise of how well supported they were. The provider had made a range of external connections to help improve the experiences of people, staff and to have a broader impact on social care.

People, their relatives and external professionals all agreed the service was extremely well managed. They felt closely involved in how the service was run and how best to support their loved ones to make to the most of the service provided.

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 this service was Outstanding (published 3 October 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

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 outstanding. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

Follow Up

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