Archived: Penwith Care

Updated 16 September 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 24 and 26 June 2015 and the provider was given 24 hours notice of the inspection in accordance with our current methodology for the inspection of domiciliary care agencies. The inspection team consisted of one inspector.

Prior to this inspection we reviewed information we held about the service and notifications we had received. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

During the inspection we met and spoke with the five people who used the service, two relatives, four members of care staff, the registered manager, the service’s management consultant and, two health professionals who regularly worked with the service. In addition we also inspected a range of records. These included four care plans, five staff files, training records, staff duty rotas, call monitoring data, meeting minutes and the service’s policies and procedures.

Updated 16 September 2015

Penwith Care is a small domiciliary care agency which provides support to people in their own homes in and around St Ives Bay. At the time of our inspection Penwith Care was providing support to 32 predominantly older people.

This inspection took place on 24 and 26 June 2015 and was announced 24 hours in advance in accordance with the Care Quality Commission’s current procedures for inspecting domiciliary care services. The service was previously inspected in July 2014 when it was found to have failed to have complied with some of the requirement of the regulations. Staff had not received appropriate induction, training or formal supervision. In addition the service records were disorganised. Some people’s care records did not include any information about their care needs and some staff files and training records were missing.

The organisation was led by a registered manager who also owns the business. A 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People were happy with the care they received from staff who they got on with well. People’s comments included; “they are good company we have quite good fun together”, “very pleasant ladies” and, “They [Staff] are all very nice and definitely look after me.”

The service had recently experienced a number of management challenges when a number of staff had resigned. Throughout this period the registered manager had endeavoured to ensure people’s care needs were met. Where the service was unable to meet people’s needs the registered manager had worked with commissioners to arrange for people’s care to be transferred to other providers.

Records demonstrated that low staffing levels had impacted on the timing of people’s care visits. During the week prior to our inspection we saw some visits had been provided over an hour early while other care visits had been over two hours late. People who used the service told us; “Mostly arrive within half an hour, they tend to be early at the moment” and, “not exactly to time but it does not matter”. Health and social care professionals commented, “they do their very best but sometimes they can be very late”. We found, however, that once staff arrived they normally provided the full length of planned care visits and we did not identify any incidents when the care visits did not take place.

Staff visit schedules showed staff regularly supported the same people and were able to develop caring relationships with the people they supported. People told us; I have the same carer all week” and, “They [Staff] are all very nice and definitely look after me.” While staff said; “I know all my client’s well” and, “my rota does not change much, I see the same people every week.”

The service was in the process of actively recruiting additional staff to enable the service to meet people’s care needs. However, the failure to complete necessary pre-employment checks or provide induction training before allowing staff to deliver care exposed people who used the service to unnecessary risks.

The registered manager had recognised they needed additional management support and a consultant had been appointed to act as the service’s deputy manager. The registered manager and consultant were aware of most of the areas of concern identified during the inspection and were in the process of planning how these issued could be resolved. Staff said, “the manager knows things need to change, which is why the consultant is here”.

Care plans were available for all of the people who received care and support from Penwith Care. Each person’s care plan was up to date and included sufficient information to enable staff to meet people’s care needs. Staff said the care plans were, “useful”, “good” and, “kept up to date”.

People’s feedback was valued by the service. Complaints had been appropriately investigated and resolved to people’s satisfaction. A survey was in progress at the time of our inspection and initial feedback people had provided was positive.

We found a breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.