28 February 2018
During a routine inspection
At this inspection we found that the service was now meeting regulations and we have changed their rating to ‘Good’.
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides care and rehabilitation services to older adults and support to people with mental health needs in the London Borough of Camden and the City of Westminster. At the time of our inspection the service was providing personal care to 83 people. Not everyone using Mayfair Homecare-Westminster receives regulated activity; 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 registered manager, who had been in post since November 2017 and completed their registration in February 2018. 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.
People told us they were treated with kindness and respect by staff. People’s views were sought through reviews and telephone monitoring. Accurate assessments of people’s needs were carried out yearly and care plans were designed to meet these needs. Care plans were concise and contained accurate and important details about the care people required and wanted. Care workers demonstrated they had delivered care as planned through accurate recording. People had consented to their care in line with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA).
Suitable recruitment systems were operated by managers to make sure that staff were suitable for their roles. There were good systems in place to make sure care workers arrived on time and that people were protected from the risk of missed or late calls. Care workers received the correct training and supervision to carry out their roles. Managers undertook spot checks and care worker assessments to make sure that care and support were delivered effectively and in a caring manner. This included carrying out additional checks where there were concerns about staff performance.
We had previous concerns about how medicines were managed, but at this inspection we found people’s support with medicines was correctly planned and managed by care workers. Regular checks were carried out by managers to make sure that this was carried out safely. We identified two areas where the provider could further improve medicines management in line with best practice guidance and have made a recommendation about this.
Care plans detailed the support people needed to eat and drink and people’s dietary preferences. There was evidence people received varied diets. People knew how to complain and when this happened complaints were appropriately investigated and responded to, although the provider did not always record whether people were satisfied with the outcome.
Managers had carried out a comprehensive audit of the service, including of people’s care files and the recruitment and oversight of staff. Care workers told us they felt well supported by managers. There were systems in place to monitor staff training, background checks of care workers and people’s reviews. Where audits identified issues these had been correctly addressed. This had resulted in clear improvements in the management and operation of the service.