Archived: Morecare at Home

Updated 22 June 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 was planned to check 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 visit took place on 23 May 2017 and was announced. The provider was given two days’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be available at the office. We also needed to arrange to speak with people who used the service and their relatives as part of this inspection. The inspection team consisted of one inspector.

We checked the information we held about the service and the provider. This included notifications the provider had sent to us about significant events at the service and information we had received from the public. The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all of this information to formulate our inspection plan.

We spoke with three people who used the service and four relatives. We spoke with five care staff, the registered manager, the deputy manager, one of the care coordinators, the training coordinator and the business and administration manager. We did this to gain people's views about the care and to check that standards of care were being met.

We looked at the care records for five people. We checked that the care they received matched the information in their records. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service, including quality checks and staff files.

Updated 22 June 2017

We inspected this service on 23 May 2017. This inspection was announced. This meant the provider and staff knew we would be visiting the service’s office before we arrived.

At our previous inspection on the 15 April 2015 the provider was meeting the regulations that we checked but we found that improvements were needed. This was because there were no recorded audits in place to regularly assess, monitor and improve the quality of care. At this inspection we found that recorded audits were in place to monitor the service and drive improvement. However further improvements were needed to ensure people’s human rights were protected.

Morecare at Home provides personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection a total of 73 people were using the service, of these 55 people were in receipt of personal care support.

The service had a registered manager in post. 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.

Where people needed support to make decisions, their capacity had not been assessed to ensure that it was clear why they could not make specific decisions. Consideration had not been made where people may be deprived of their liberty to ensure their human rights were upheld.

People received their calls as agreed and from a consistent staff team. People were protected from abuse as staff understood what constituted abuse or poor practice and their role in reporting concerns. Checks on staff were done before they started work to ensure they were suitable to support people. Medicines were managed safely and people were supported to take their medicine when needed.

People were supported by staff that received training to develop their skills and safely support the people they worked with. Staff were provided with supervision by the management team to monitor their conduct and support their professional development. When needed, people were supported to maintain their dietary requirements and preferences and to access healthcare services.

People felt that staff were kind and caring. People confirmed that the staff treated them with respect and ensured their privacy and dignity was upheld. The provider sought the opinions of people and their representatives to bring about improvements. People knew how to complain and we saw when complaints were made these were addressed. There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service to enable the registered manager and provider to drive improvement. The provider understood their responsibilities around registration with us.

We found a breach of Regulation 11 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.