Archived: Bury Council Domiciliary Care

Updated 26 May 2017

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.

The inspection was undertaken by one adult care inspector, took place on 16, 17 and 20 February 2017 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be available to support us with our inspection.

Before our inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service including notifications the provider had sent to us. We contacted the local authority safeguarding and commissioning teams. They raised no concerns about the care and support people received from the service.

We had requested the service complete a provider information return (PIR); this is a form that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. This was returned to us by the service.

During our inspection, with their permission we visited and spoke with five people who used the service who were at different support stages on the reablement pathway and three relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, a deputy manager, two co-ordinators and three care workers. The strategic lead for adult operations and the business manager for adult operations senior management team were present at the feedback session for this inspection.

We reviewed a range of records relating to how the service was managed; these included five people’s care records and staff training records. We also visited Bury Town Hall on 20 February 2017 and reviewed three staff recruitment files.

Updated 26 May 2017

This inspection was unannounced and took place on 15, 16 and 20 February 2017. This was the first inspection of this service.

Bury Council Domiciliary Care or Bury Council Reablement Service as it is known, provides people with a service to help regain skills and confidence and to stay independent and living at home for up to six weeks. The service usually supported between 80-90 people at any one time. At the time of our inspection, 89 people were using the service and were at various stages of the reablement process.

The service had a manager who was registered with us. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us that they felt safe. Staff had received training in safeguarding adults. They were able to tell us of the action they would take to protect people who used the service from the risk of abuse.

Procedures were in place to help ensure staff were safely recruited to ensure that people were not supported by staff who were unsuitable to work with vulnerable people.

People received reliable consistent and flexible support from staff who knew them well. We saw sufficient numbers of staff were available to help ensure people’s assessed needs were met so that progress in their health and well-being was maintained.

Systems were in place to ensure the safe handling of medicines and to reduce the risk of cross infection in the service.

The service was always looking for creative and innovative ways to improve the service by looking at ways to streamline service delivery and fully use staff time. This was achieved by working with the local hospital, doctors, community based professional and other local authorities. This included ways of reduce people’s social isolation.

People who used the service had the capacity to make decisions about what they did and the choices they made.

Staff received the training and support from the service to help support people safely and effectively.

The service worked closely with other healthcare professionals to help ensure that people received the service they needed quickly.

People we spoke with said they were very happy with the support provided. They told us they could make decisions about their individual support to help regain their confidence and independence. People told us caring and compassionate staff supported them.

People were involved in developing their goal plan. The documentation clearly showed where people were making progress and this was important to them.

Once agreement to the service was reached an assessment co-ordinator assessed the person’s needs and made sure the equipment and support they needed was in place to help promote their independence as quickly as possible.

People we spoke with did not raise any complaints or concerns about the service. They told us they would speak to their co-coordinator if they did and were confident they would listen and take action. Highly complementary feedback had been received from people who used the service, during this inspection, from our survey and from internal feedback systems.

There were effective systems in place to monitor and review the quality and health and safety of the service. Staff members we spoke with said that the registered manager, deputies and co-ordinators were very approachable and supportive