Archived: Meadow Home Care Services Limited

Updated 25 February 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check 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.

We reviewed information received about the service, for example, from our ‘Share Your Experience’ web forms and the statutory notifications the service had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. Prior to our inspection we received concerns from two members of staff about the standard of their induction into the service and the training provided, which we were able to check during our inspection. We contacted the local authority commissioners to find out their views of the service provided. Commissioners are people who contract care and support services provided to people. They had no further information to tell us that we were not already aware of.

Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We were able to review the information in the PIR during our inspection.

The office visit took place on 27 January 2016 and was announced. We told the provider we would be coming so they could ensure they would be available to speak with us and arrange for us to speak with care workers. The inspection was conducted by two 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.

Before the office visit we sent surveys to people who used the service to obtain their views of the service they received. Surveys were returned from17 people who used the service and five relatives. We spoke with 11 people who used the service or their relative by telephone.

During our visit we spoke with three care workers, two care co-ordinators, the care manager, the office manager and the registered manager. We reviewed four people’s care records to see how their care and support was planned and delivered. We checked whether staff had been recruited safely and were trained to deliver the care and support people required. We looked at other records related to people’s care and how the service operated including the service’s quality assurance audits and records of complaints.

Updated 25 February 2016

Meadow Home Care Services is a domiciliary care agency which is registered to provide personal care support to people in their own homes. At the time of our visit the agency supported approximately 170 people with personal care and employed 72 care workers.

We visited the offices of Meadow Home Care Services on 27 January 2016. We had told the provider 48 hours before the visit we were coming so they could arrange for staff to be available to talk with us about the service. When we arrived at the location address 41 Warwick Road we found the service had moved. We went to the new location at the provider address. We had been informed by the provider they had moved the provider address to 8-10 Ulverley Green Road, Solihull, but had not been informed they had moved the location. This meant the provider was in breach of the condition of registration that allows them to operate from a specific location. The registered manager took immediate action to submit the required applications to us.

The information in this report relates to the service provided from the provider address at 8-10 Ulverley Green Road, Solihull and not the location, 41 Warwick Road as stated on the front of this report. The change of address had not affected the service provided by Meadow Home Care.

The service has a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Not all care workers had received the induction and training required to meet people’s needs safely and effectively. Care workers practice was not being checked to make sure they worked in line with the provider’s policies and procedures.

People and their relatives told us they felt safe using the service and care workers understood how to protect people from abuse. There were processes to minimise risks to people’s safety; these included procedures to manage identified risks with people’s care and for managing people’s medicines safely. Checks were carried out prior to care workers starting work to ensure their suitability to work with people who used the service.

The managers had limited understanding of the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and their responsibilities under the Act.

Care workers respected people’s decisions and gained people’s consent before they provided personal care. People told us care workers were kind and caring.

There were enough care workers to provide care to people and most people had consistent care workers. People had different experiences about the times care workers arrived; most people received their care around the time expected. People said care workers stayed the agreed length of time and knew how they liked to receive their care.

Care plans and risk assessments contained relevant information for care workers to help them provide the care people required. People knew how to complain and were able to share their views and opinions about the service they received. Care workers were confident they could raise any concerns or issues with the managers and felt they would be listened to.

There were processes to monitor the quality of the service provided and understand the experiences of people who used the service. However, the registered manager and other manager’s in the service did not have sufficient knowledge and understanding of their regulatory responsibilities. The registered manager’s overview of the service was not sufficiently robust to ensure the service always operated effectively and safely.

We found a breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.