Trends Healthcare Essex

Updated 4 November 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector.

Service and service type

Trends Healthcare Westcliff is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

We visited the offices on the 10 October 2023 and made phone calls to people, relatives and staff on the 11 October 2023.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and other professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 2 people who used the service and 3 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 5 members of staff including the registered manager and care staff.

We viewed a range of records. This included 3 people's care records and multiple medication records. We looked at 2 staff files in relation to recruitment and a variety of records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 4 November 2023

About the service

Trends Healthcare Westcliff is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 10 people receiving a regulated activity.

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

Feedback from families and relatives was positive. A relative told us, “I am absolutely delighted with the service, they are so helpful, I feel blessed.” One person told us, “They [staff] are very good. I feel lucky to have them.”

Care and treatment was planned and delivered in a way that was intended to ensure people's safety and welfare. Care was personalised around people’s needs and preferences. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs. People were cared for safely by staff who had been recruited and employed after appropriate checks had been completed. The registered manager enabled staff to develop their skills to provide good quality care.

There were systems in place to minimise the risk of infection and to learn lessons from accidents and incidents. Medicines was administered by staff who had received training to do so.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The registered manager continuously developed their own skills and staff skills to promote positive outcomes for people using the service. Staff remained committed to providing good quality care. Quality assurance systems were in place to monitor the quality and safety of the service. The registered manager maintained good oversight of the service and used this to continuously drive improvements and adhere to best practice principles.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The rating at the last inspection was good (published 18 October 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staff recruitment. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Trends Healthcare Westcliff on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.