29 March 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Care2Connect is a domiciliary care agency providing care to people living in their own homes. At the time of inspection, the service was providing personal care to 120 people.
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 service was not always safe and well led. The provider did not have robust systems for people to share feedback or raise concerns. People did not always experience responses to concerns they raised.
People and their relatives did not always find the service to be well organised. Rosters had been planned one day in advance so people and their relatives were left unclear about how care calls would be fulfilled.
Communication about changes to the organisation and care calls was not always timely. Late and missed calls were not always notified to people, leaving them concerned about whether they would receive a call.
People felt safe with care staff and appreciated their friendly, respectful approach to support.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 04 June 2019).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to a period of insufficient staffing leading to the involvement of the local authority to support the delivery of people’s care. 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 good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.
Following our inspection the provider took steps to review their processes to identify areas for improvement.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care2Connect on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.
We identified a breach of Regulation 16 (Receiving and acting on complaints) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and Regulation 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.