Updated 2 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 team consisted of two inspectors 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:
Nutrix Curae Ltd is a domiciliary care agency that, at the time of inspection, provided personal care to 30 people. Nutrix Curae Ltd provides a service to older people, people living with dementia, adults with learning disabilities and people living with sensory impairments.
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 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is sometimes out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 22nd March 2019 and ended on 26th March 2019. We visited the office location on 25th March 2019 to see the manager and office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
As part of the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service, including notifications. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. A notification is information about events that by law the registered persons should tell us about. We asked for feedback from the commissioners of people's care to find out their views on the quality of the service.
During the inspection, we spoke with seven people who used the service and eight relatives. We did this to gain people’s views about the care and to check standards of care were being met. We also spoke with the registered manager, nominated individual and four care staff.
We reviewed the care records of six people. We looked at three staff files, which included pre-employment checks and training records. We also looked at other records relating to the management of the service including rotas, complaint logs, accident reports, monthly audits, and medicine administration records.