Archived: Comfort Call - Leeds

Updated 7 July 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.

This inspection took place on 17 May 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be at the location. The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector, a pharmacist inspector, a specialist advisor in governance 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 our inspection, we reviewed all the information we held about the home, including previous inspection reports and statutory notifications. Before the inspection providers are sometimes asked to complete 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 did not ask the service to provide us with a PIR prior to this inspection. We contacted the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch feedback stated they had no comments or concerns. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

At the time of our inspection there were 90 people receiving personal care from Comfort Call- Leeds. We visited five people who used the service to look at their medication and associated documentation. We spoke by telephone with eight people who used the service, four relatives and five staff. We also spoke with the registered manager, regional manager and a care co-ordinator. We visited the office of the service and spent some time looking at documents and records that related to people’s care and support and the management of the service. We looked at five people’s care records and six people’s medication records.

Updated 7 July 2016

This was an announced inspection carried out on the 17 May 2016. At the last comprehensive inspection in October 2015 we rated the service as requires improvement. At that inspection we found two breaches of regulation; people were not protected against the risks associated with medicines because the provider did not have appropriate arrangements in place to manage medicines and there were not always effective systems in place to manage, monitor and improve the quality of the service provided.

After the inspection in October 2015, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet the regulations in relation to each breach. They told us they would complete all actions by the end of January 2016. At this inspection, in May 2016, we found that the provider had not completed their plan of action and legal requirements were still not met. We also found additional breaches.

Comfort Call-Leeds is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the Leeds and Kirklees area. At the time of the inspection there was a registered manager in post. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Medicines were not managed consistently and safely. Safe medicine administration practices were not followed so people were not protected against the risks of unsafe management of medicines. Although staff had received training in managing medicines, this had not given staff the required competency to manage medicines safely. People had not always received their medicines as prescribed, resulting in potential harm.

The provider’s systems to monitor and assess the quality of service provision were not effective. Actions that had been identified to improve the service were not always implemented and the provider’s quality monitoring systems had failed to identify significant concerns.

People did not always receive their care and support as planned as staff had missed some people’s calls and did not always spend the agreed time on the calls; cutting them short if they did not have enough time to get from one call to the next. Where people had regular care staff they spoke highly of them. However, people told us they did not have consistent staff at weekends and this meant they had calls from staff they were not familiar with and who did not know their needs.

There were not always effective systems in place to respond appropriately to complaints and comments made by people who used the service or people acting on their behalf. People who used the service were not confident that their comments and complaints were always listened to and dealt with effectively.

Staff training records showed staff had completed a range of training; however full records of induction training were not available to show this had been completed thoroughly. Staff knew what to do to make sure people were safeguarded from abuse and any risks were managed to ensure people’s safety.

Staff were able to demonstrate the different ways in which they helped to protect people’s privacy and dignity and could describe the individual needs of people who used the service.

We found a number of breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) regulations 2014. You can see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.