Daniel's Special Care Ltd

Updated 13 October 2022

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 comprised an 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 home.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

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

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period of notice of the inspection so that the provider could contact people we wanted to talk with and obtain their consent to take part in the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 18 August 2022 and ended on 22 August 2022. We visited the location’s office on 18 August 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider 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 14 people who used the service and family members. We spoke with the registered manager and another member of staff.

We reviewed records relating to people’s care and the running of the service. These included care records for five people and five staff recruitment files.

Updated 13 October 2022

About the service

Daniel’s Special Care Ltd is a home care agency providing personal care services for people in their own home. At the time of our inspection there were 65 people using 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

The provider had embedded and sustained improvements to staffing levels and the safe management of medicines. There were processes in place to keep people safe and manage risks, including risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. There were sufficient staff to support people safely. There were processes to manage people's medicines, and to protect people from the risk of abuse or poor care. People told us they felt safe with the service they received.

The provider had embedded and sustained improvements to how they monitored and improved the quality of the service. The service people received was well led. The service focused on person-centred care and good outcomes for people. There were effective systems in place to manage the service, improve the quality of care people received, and support staff to deliver high quality care. The provider had implemented online systems to improve efficiency.

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 11 February 2020).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staffing levels. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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 changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

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

Follow up

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