29 September 2020
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Shield Care Ltd is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection three people were receiving a service. 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
People and their relatives were satisfied with the service being delivered by the staff. One relative said, “[The staff] are all wonderful. Without them we don’t know how we’d manage. Our [family member] is very lucky.”
People felt safe with the staff. Staff had received training in a wide range of topics and knew how to keep people safe from harm. Assessments of some potential risks had been completed, including for medicines administration. There were no risk assessments related to COVID-19: we have signposted the provider to resources to develop their approach. Infection control procedures were followed by staff and there were enough staff to meet people’s needs.
The service does not have a registered manager in post. Although auditing of various aspects of the service had improved there were still further improvements to be made, especially in the records. Quality assurance processes included seeking the views of people who used the service and their relatives. The provider did not fully understand their legal responsibilities and had failed to display their rating.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was inadequate (report published 18 February 2020), there were multiple breaches of regulation and the service was in Special Measures. We issued the provider with a warning notice stating they must make the improvements by 30 April 2020. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
This service has been in Special Measures since February 2020. During this inspection the provider demonstrated that improvements have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures. The provider had met the requirements of the warning notice and was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection. We planned to carry out a targeted inspection to check whether the Warning Notice we previously served in relation to Regulation 17 (Good Governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 had been met. We inspected and found there had been improvements in a number of areas of the service being provided. We widened the scope of the inspection to become a focused inspection which included the key questions of safe and well-led.
We did not inspect the other key questions. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Shield Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
The overall rating for the service has changed from inadequate to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
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 discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.
Since the last inspection we recognised that the provider had failed to display their rating. This was a breach of regulation. Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to this is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.