Updated 24 February 2018
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, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
This inspection took place on 15 and 17 January 2018 and was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager is often out of the office supporting staff or visiting people. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
On 15 January 2018 we visited four people who received support at their homes.
On 17 January 2018 we visited the services office on to speak with the registered manager, some staff and to review records, policies and procedures.
The inspection team consisted of two adult social care 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. The expert by experience had experience in caring for older people and people living with dementia.
Before the inspection visit, we reviewed the information we held about the service, including the Provider Information Return (PIR), which the registered provider completed before the inspection. The PIR is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed information we had received since the last inspection including notifications of incidents that the registered provider had sent us.
We contacted Sheffield local authority to obtain their views of the service. All of the comments and feedback received were reviewed and used to assist and inform our inspection.
We spoke with the regional operations director, the registered manager, the operations support officer, the quality officer, a team leader and a care coordinator in person during the visit to the office. We also spoke in person with one care worker during visits to people’s homes and four care workers during the visit to the office.
We spoke with four people receiving support and four of their relatives in person at their homes to obtain their views.
We telephoned 24 people who received support and managed to speak with 12 people, or their relatives, to obtain their views.
We reviewed a range of records, which included six people’s care records, four staff support and employment records, training records and other records relating to the management of the domiciliary care agency.