Care Support Essex Branch

Updated 17 June 2021

The inspection

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.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two inspectors and one 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.

Service and service type

This service provides care to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service a short period of notice because it covers multiple sites and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support us with the inspection. Inspection activity started on 20 April 2021 and ended on 02 June 2021. We visited the office location on 11 May 2021.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who might work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people who used the service and five relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with six staff including the registered manager, one site manager, two care coordinators and two care staff. We reviewed a range of records. This included eight people’s care records. We looked at six staff files in relation to recruitment. We also looked at a variety of records relating to the management of the service.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. This included speaking to a further three care staff. We looked at further evidence sent to us by the provider with regard to things people told us and infection prevention and control.

Updated 17 June 2021

About the service

Care Support Essex Branch is an extra care service that provides personal care to 120 people across four sites. These four sites were large apartment complexes with shared amenities such as activity rooms, gardens and dining areas. People living at these sites lived in their own flats and did not need to use the service unless they wanted to. Three of the four sites were in the London borough of Havering and one site was in the county of Essex.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

There were systems in place to safeguard people from abuse. Risks to people were assessed and mitigated. Recruitment processes were robust and there were sufficient staff available to support people safely. Staff were trained in infection control and there were infection prevention measures in place. Medicines were managed safely. Lessons were learnt when things went wrong.

Quality assurance processes were in place but were not always effective. We have made a recommendation to the provider about following best practice around auditing documents and records because we found staff sometimes audited their own work. People and relatives thought highly about the service. The registered manager understood their responsibilities towards the people they worked with and regulatory requirements placed upon them. People and staff engaged with the service. The service worked with other professionals to the benefit of the people using the service.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 06 March 2019).

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about people’s safety. We believed there was risk present at the service including allegations of abuse notifications we had received from the service in the past 12 months. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service remains Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Care Support Essex Branch on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

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.