Springfield Healthcare (Leeds & Wakefield)

Updated 30 April 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 team consisted of two inspectors and two Experts 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. Their area of expertise was domiciliary care.

Service and service type:

Springfield Healthcare (Leeds & Wakefield) is a domiciliary care agency and provides personal care to people living in their own homes. The CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also take into account any wider social care provided.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). However, they were no longer in day to day control of the service. A new manager had been appointed in January 2019. The provider was legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

Our inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit. We needed to be sure a staff member would be available to facilitate this inspection. Inspection site visit activity started on 9 April 2019 and ended on 10 April 2019. We visited the site on both days to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records, policies and procedures. On 9 and 10 April 2019, we spoke with people who used the service, their relatives and staff by telephone.

What we did:

Before the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service, including statutory notifications. Notifications are used to inform CQC about certain changes, events or incidents that occur. We requested feedback from stakeholders. These included the local authority safeguarding and commissioning team and Healthwatch England. Healthwatch England is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. The provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form providers are required to send us which contains 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 our inspection, we spoke with the operations manager, the manager, the manager of specialist services, a care co-ordinator, and nine staff members. We spoke with 32 people who used the service and five relatives. We reviewed documents and records that related to the management of the service. We looked at nine people’s support plans in detail and further six support plans for specific information. We looked a range of policies, procedures and guidance used by staff in their role, together with records of safeguarding, accidents, incidents and complaints, audits and quality assurance reports. We reviewed five staff members files and records associated with the management and administration of people’s medicines.

After the inspection, additional evidence was sent to us and this information was used as part of our inspection.

Updated 30 April 2019

About the service: Springfield Healthcare (Leeds & Wakefield) is registered as a domiciliary care agency providing the regulated activity ‘personal care’ to people who live in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, the service was providing personal care to 319 people.

People’s experience of using this service: Effective systems were in place to monitor the quality of service and action was taken where areas for improvement had been found. People, relatives and staff had the opportunity to provide feedback about the service. The provider worked in partnership with other services to support people’s quality of life and well-being, when needed.

People were supported safely and protected from harm. There were systems in place to reduce the risk of abuse and to assess and monitor potential risks to individual people. The management of medicines was safe, staff had completed training and audits were completed and actions identified to reduce the number or recording errors. Staff followed infection prevention and control guidance when supporting people. Lessons were learnt, through accident, incident, safeguarding and complaints. These were shared with staff members to ensure changes were made to staff practice, to reduce the risk of further occurrences.

There were enough skilled and experienced staff to meet people’s needs. An induction was completed by new staff. Staff received appropriate training and support to enable them to perform their roles effectively. There was a system in place to monitor staff training. Recruitment processes and a staff retention programme were in place.

Staff involved healthcare professionals to support people's health needs, where required. Support plans identified nutritional and dietary requirements. People received support, with eating and drinking, when needed. 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. Staff gained people's consent before providing support.

People and relatives said staff were kind and caring. Staff described the importance of treating people with dignity and respect. Initial assessments were carried out to ensure people’s needs could be met. Support plans showed people were involved in their support and were personalised, with sufficient detail for staff to provide effective care and support. Some people required end of life care. The provider worked closely other organisations who facilitated their specific care needs and staff had received training, where appropriate.

Information was provided so people knew who to speak with if they had concerns. A complaints system was in place and these were managed effectively.

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection, the service was rated ‘requires improvement’ (published 10 April 2018).

Why we inspected: All services rated ‘requires improvement’ are re-inspected within one year of our prior inspection report publication date. This was a planned inspection was carried out on 9 and 10 April 2019 to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Since our last inspection in December 2017, the provider had made improvements to the management of medicines, monitoring staff training and governance of the service. The operations manager was in the process of reviewing staff travel time between visits and improving the assessment of people’s mental capacity.

At this inspection we found the provider’s rating had improved to good.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service through information we receive. Further inspections will be planned for future dates as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

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