Archived: Coastal Care Limited

Updated 19 February 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 one expert by experience (ExE). An ExE is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their areas of expertise included older people, people living with dementia and people who have used social care services.

Service and service type:

• Caremark New Forest is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in the West Hampshire area.

• The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Notice of inspection:

• We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be available to meet with us.

• The inspection site visit was on 31 January 2019. We visited the office location to see the registered manager and to review care records and policies and procedures.

• We contacted people by telephone about their experiences of the service on 28 January 2019.

What we did:

• Before we inspected we reviewed the information we already held about the service. We reviewed the provider information return, (PIR). The PIR is submitted by the provider annually and contains evidence about how the service is performing and developments they intend to make. The PIR helps us to plan our inspection.

• We looked at notifications sent to us by the provider. Notifications are reports about specific events that the provider must tell us about by law.

• During the inspection we looked at four staff records, four peoples care records, we saw policies and procedures, records of accidents and incidents and complaints. We looked at quality assurance reports and audits of the service.

• We spoke with the registered manager, three care staff and three people who used the service.

Updated 19 February 2019

About the service:

• Caremark New Forest is a domiciliary care service that provides care and support to people living in their own homes in the community.

• When we inspected, Caremark were providing regulated services to 14 people.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People told us that the staff who provided their support made them feel safe and secure.

• Staff were trained in safeguarding and told us they would not hesitate to whistle-blow to the manager or to external agencies if they were concerned about the standard of care delivered.

• The provider had a comprehensive business continuity plan that detailed how the service would manage to provide support to people in a range of eventualities such as inclement weather or widespread power cuts.

• Staff were safely recruited and necessary pre-employment checks were completed before staff commenced in post.

• Staff were knowledgeable about infection control.

• Staff were trained in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and assumed people had the capacity to make decisions unless they had been assessed as being unable to do so. People’s mental capacity had been considered as part of the care planning process.

• Before working with people, staff completed an induction and mandatory training courses. They shadowed more experienced staff members until they were confident they could safely support people.

• Staff were supported by regular supervision sessions with the registered manager who also completed spot checks of staff to ensure they were providing a high standard of care.

• People told us that staff members were kind and caring and they looked forwards to their visits.

• The provider had policies in place that ensured that peoples diverse needs were met and that care was delivered in line with their cultural or religious requirements, or as they wanted it to be delivered.

• Staff encouraged people to have an active role in their care. They were supported to complete aspects of their carethat were within their abilities.

• People were involved in their care reviews, they were given plenty of notice of the review so they could invite representatives to attend with them, and consider questions and concerns they may want to raise.

• Staff told us they maintained people’s dignity and privacy and promoted their independence.

• We were told of a number of successful interventions by the provider and how they had made a significant difference to peoples wellbeing.

• People knew how to complain about the provider however there had been no complaints since we last inspected the service.

• The provider supported people with end of life care in partnership with local GP’s and district nurses.

• We received positive feedback about the registered manager and people told us they believed the service to be very well-led.

• Audits completed by the provider ensured that all aspects of care were in line with best practice and safe.

• The provider sought feedback from people receiving a service using an annual quality assurance survey.

• The service met the characteristics of good in all areas.

Rating at last inspection: Good (report published 19 August 2016)

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the services previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor information that we receive about the service and will return to inspect as per our re-inspection programme or sooner if we have concerns about the service.