Archived: Empathy Care Services

Updated 11 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 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 took place on 30 March 2017. The inspection was announced. The inspection team consisted of two inspectors and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Our expert by experience’s area of expertise was the care of older people.

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 in.

We looked at the information we held about the service, which included ‘notifications’. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the provider must tell us about.

We also reviewed the provider’s statement of purpose. A statement of purpose is a document which includes the services aims and objectives.

We contacted commissioners for health and social care, responsible for funding some of the people who used the service and asked them for their views about the agency. We were told that there they had received no information of concern about the current provision of personal care to people using the service.

During the inspection we spoke with six people who used the service and two relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, and three care workers.

We looked in detail at the care and support provided to three people who used the service, including their care records, audits on the running of the service, staff training, staff recruitment records and medicine administration records.

Updated 11 May 2017

Empathy Nursing and Social Care provides personal care and treatment for adults and children living in their own homes. On the day of the inspection the registered manager informed us that there were a total of 18 people receiving care from the service.

A registered manager was in place. 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. The previous inspection was carried out in March 2016 to follow up Warning Notices issued at the comprehensive inspection of November 2015 with regard to providing safe care and ensuring a quality service. We found the warning notices had been complied with. At the last comprehensive inspection of November 2015, we asked the provider to take action to make improvements to people’s personal care, and this action has largely been completed.

People and relatives we spoke with told us they thought the service ensured that people received safe personal care. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and staff understood their responsibilities in this area.

We saw that medicines were, in the main, supplied safely and on time, to protect people’s health needs though improvements to records were needed.

Risk assessments were not always comprehensively in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare. Staff recruitment checks were in place to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff.

Staff had received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs, though this had not always covered some relevant issues.

Staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choices about how they lived their lives, though assessments of people's capacity had not been in place to ensure people's ability to make decisions was comprehensively protected.

People and relatives we spoke with all told us that staff were friendly, kind, positive and caring. They told us they had been involved in making decisions about how and what personal care was needed to meet care needs.

Care plans were individual to the people using the service to ensure that their needs were met, though they did not include all relevant information such as people's past histories.

People and relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns, they were confident these would be properly followed up. Evidence of complaints made had not always showed they had been properly investigated.

People and their relatives were satisfied with how the service was run. Staff felt they were supported in their work by the senior management of the service.

Management carried out audits in order to check that the service was meeting people's needs and to ensure people were provided with a quality service, though action was not always shown to be taken for some issues.