14 June 2023
During an inspection looking at part of 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
Full pre- employment checks were not always conducted before people were hired to work, as we found not all care workers had full employment histories on their file. The provider was not consistently promoting a positive culture within the service as people did not find office staff helpful in relation to their complaints about the timeliness of care calls.
The provider safely managed people’s medicines and were auditing people’s medicines administration records. The provider was also conducting monitoring calls with people to get feedback on their care but were also unable to demonstrate the frequency of these.
The provider was working within the principles of the MCA, had effective systems and processes in place to safeguard people from the risk of abuse and safely managed risks to people’s health and safety. There were clear systems in place to minimise and control the spread of infection and lessons were learned when things went wrong.
The provider used an electronic system to monitor care calls, which was constantly reviewed. They were aware of concerns relating to timeliness and lack of care worker consistency and had taken action in respect of specific complaints they had received.
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 (published 23 May 2023) and there was a breach of regulations. 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 the provider remained in breach of regulations.
At our last inspection we made recommendations in relation to the safe management of people’s medicines and consent. At this inspection, we found the provider had acted on those recommendations.
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted due to concerns we received about the safety and quality of the service. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.
Enforcement and recommendations
We have found a breach in relation to staffing.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of the full version of this report.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.