The Care Company - Stoke Branch

Updated 12 June 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team: The inspection was carried out by one inspector, an assistant inspector 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 is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes up to 24 hours per day.

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 48 hours' notice of the inspection site visit because they provide a domiciliary care service and we had to make sure staff would be in.

Inspection activity started on 10 April 2019 and ended on 30 April 2019. We reviewed information provided by the service on 10 April 2019. We visited the office location on 15 April 2019 to see the registered manager and to review care records, policies and procedures. We contacted people and their relatives, with prior permission, on 17 April 2019 and spoke to staff on 30 April 2019. We spoke to the registered manager on 15 and 30 April 2019.

What we did: Due to technical problems, the provider was not able to complete a Provider Information Return. 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 reviewed the information that we held about the service. This included any statutory notifications received. Statutory notifications are specific pieces of information about events, which the provider is required to send to us by law.

We sought feedback from the local authority contracts monitoring and safeguarding adult's teams and reviewed the information they provided. We contacted the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who commission services from the provider. We also contacted Healthwatch, who are the independent consumer champion for people who use health and social care services. The feedback from these parties was used in the planning of our inspection.

During the inspection we reviewed documentation and spoke to staff, people and relatives.

We spoke with five people who used service, 10 relatives and five members of staff including the registered manager. We reviewed the care records for three people, medicine records for three people and the recruitment records for two members of staff. We looked at quality assurance audits carried out by the registered manager and the provider. We also looked at the staffing rotas, training records, meeting minutes, policies and procedures, and information related to the governance of the service.

Updated 12 June 2019

About the service: The Care Company - Stoke is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of inspection there were 46 people receiving the regulated activity.

People’s experience of using this service: People receiving support from the service were positive about the care provided by staff. People were supported to remain independent within their own homes. People said they had their dignity upheld by staff and were treated kindly.

People had their needs assessed before receiving support and were regularly reviewed to make sure they were getting the support they needed. People had personalised care plans, which detailed what was important to them and what their choices were regarding their care.

The service worked in partnership with other healthcare professionals to provide a responsive package of care to people. People had risk assessments in place for staff to use to help keep them safe. People were supported to be independent and maintain their social relationships.

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

Medicines were safely managed. Staff supported people with their medication appropriately and worked in partnership with GPs and other health care professionals to regularly review people's medication and assess their needs.

Staff received regular training and new staff were provided with an in-depth induction programme to provide them with all the necessary skills to support people. The registered manager and provider worked together well to put people at the heart of the organisation.

There was a robust quality and assurance system in place to monitor the quality of care provided to people. People, relatives and staff were asked for their feedback and this was used alongside the quality and assurance system to improve the service.

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

Rating at last inspection: This was the first inspection of the service since it was registered in April 2018.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the date of the service registering with the CQC.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service through information we receive from the service, provider, the public and partnership agencies. We will re-visit the service in-line with our inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.