Eden Brook Home Care Ltd Also known as Eden Brook

Updated 13 April 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

This was a targeted inspection to check whether the provider had met the requirements of the Warning Notice in relation to Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. However, we opened the scope of this inspection to review the key questions safe and well-led, following evidence of wider improvements.

Inspection team

This inspection as carried out by 2 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.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was not a registered manager in post. The nominated individual had previously held the role of registered manager, and was applying to register again, but had experienced technical difficulties in their application. We are currently assessing this application.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 15 March 2023 and ended on 4 April 2023. We visited the location’s office on 22 March 2023.

When we announced the inspection the office address for the service had moved. Our inspection occurred at the new office address. We are following up with the provider to check this change of address is correctly progressed.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection, including records sent by the provider to demonstrate compliance with the Warning Notices served. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with 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 the inspection

We spoke with 9 people and 5 people’s relatives to seek their feedback on care. We looked at a range of documents including recruitment, training and supervision records, care plans and risk assessments. We also reviewed some policies, procedures and audits. We spoke with 9 members of staff, including care workers, the training manager, the HR manager, the care manager and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

Updated 13 April 2023

About the service

New HQ (known as Eden Brook Home Care) is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to older people, people with physical disabilities and those living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 98 people using the service.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. There were 97 people supported with personal care at this inspection.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Improvements were being made to staff training and supervision records to ensure people received safe care. The provider acted to respond to potential risks relating to medication, incidents or accidents. People had risk assessments in place to guide staff. Staff demonstrated effective infection prevention and control practice. Staff were recruited safely. There were sufficient staff available to support people consistently, and to meet their needs and preferences. Most people told us they were satisfied with the safety and quality of the care.

Whilst improvements had been made since the last inspection, these needed to be embedded and sustained to check any changes to systems and processes were effective. We have made a recommendation a system for monitoring this is established. Some record keeping was unstructured and informal. The nominated individual took action straight away, including introducing a provider-level audit as an additional level of oversight following our feedback. The service worked well in partnership with other professionals, such as the local hospice. Staff and people told us the service had improved.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 18 January 2023) and there were breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We undertook a targeted inspection to check whether the Warning Notices we previously served in relation to Regulation 12 and Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 had been met. We use targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.

However, during the course of the inspection we found additional improvements had been made, so we widened the scope of the inspection to become a focused inspection which included the key questions of safe and well-led.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for New HQ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation about developing a process to monitor and review the implementation of new oversight systems, to ensure they are effective and sustained.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.