Updated 17 July 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 was carried out by one 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. In this case their area of expertise was caring for someone with dementia.
Service and service type:
Home First-South Staffordshire is a short-term enablement service for people living in the local area. The service supports adults who have experienced a period of poor health to maximise or regain their independence and supports people with their personal care needs.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means 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 three working days’ notice of the inspection site visit because it is small and the manager may often be out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
What we did:
We used the information we held about the service, including statutory notifications, to plan our inspection. A statutory notification is information about events that by law the registered persons should tell us about; for example, safeguarding concerns, serious injuries, and deaths that have occurred at the service. We also used information the provider sent to us in the Provider Information Return (PIR) to formulate our inspection. plan. A PIR is key information we require from providers on an annual basis giving us key information about the service.
We spoke with five people who use the service, two relatives of people who use the service, five members of staff and the registered manager. We also spoke with a health professional who works with the service.
Following the site visit the registered manger and a member of staff sent us information that was not available during the inspection.