10 November 2015
During a routine inspection
The inspection took place on 10 November 2015 and was unannounced.
This was the first inspection which had been carried out for this service.
The service provides domiciliary care services to people in their own homes. The people who receive these services have a wide range of needs, some of which are complex and require nursing tasks to be carried out to allow them to remain independent in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 106 people receiving support in the local area surrounding their offices in Wakefield from the registered provider. These service were mainly for adults but did include a small number of children.
The service had a rgistered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
We found that the quality of the support being provided was good and feedback from people who used the service was positive and consistent. Staff told us that they enjoyed working for the provider and that they were well trained and supported to carry out their roles.
We saw that care plans were very detailed and were very personalised and catered to individual needs. There were robust risk assessments in place which identified potential risks and clearly showed what had been put in place to reduce or eliminate those risks.
The registered provider kept clear records of the care which had been provided and good records of interactions between office staff and people who used the service, their family members where appropriate, other healthcare professionals and staff.
There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and these staff were well trained and understood the needs of the people they attended and how to meet those needs. Staff understood the signs of abuse they needed to watch out for and report, who they should report their concerns to and what the escalation process was if they did not feel that appropriate action had been taken.
The service had safe recruitment processes in place and we saw that these were being followed to ensure that the staff were of good character and suited to the roles they were appointed to.
We found that people had been asked for and gave written consent for the care they were receiving.
Staff were enthusiastic and passionate about delivering good quality care when we spoke with them, and they gave examples of people who had specific cultural and religious needs and how they ensured that these were met.
We found that whilst there was evidence of good communication with people using the service, there was little evidence of regular formal contact with staff in the form of staff meetings, forums or newsletters.
Staff told us that the service was well led and that they found the registered manager to be approachable and supportive, and that they would be confident that their concerns would be dealt with appropriately should they need to raise any.
There was some auditing in the service, which included quality assurance calls being made to people who used the service and other professionals who were involved in people’s care. There was however no central point for this information, which meant that it was not possible to analyse the information which was being collected to inform continuous improvement of the service.