13/08/2014
During a routine inspection
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 and to pilot a new inspection process being introduced by CQC which looks at the overall quality of the service.
Allied Healthcare Telford provides personal care and support for people in their own homes within Telford and Wrekin. There was a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with CQC to manage the service and has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider.
We inspected the service on 13 August 2014. We told the provider two days before our visit that we would be coming. At the time of our inspection the registered manager told us the service was providing personal care support to 148 people.
People using the service told us they felt safe and that staff treated them well. Policies and procedures were in place in relation to abuse and staff understood how to protect the people they supported from abuse.
We saw supervisors carried out regular unannounced checks on the care team where their working practices were observed. There was an out of hours on call system in operation, this ensured management support and advice was always available for staff.
We found staff would not be expected to support people with specific care needs or medical conditions unless they had received the appropriate training.
People told us they knew how to make a complaint if they needed to. They were confident that the service would listen to them and they were sure that their complaint would be fully investigated and action taken if necessary.
The provider carried out annual satisfaction surveys; we were informed that the most recent results were in the process of being analysed. The service had an action plan which was as a result of its own quality assurance audits. We saw action plans for areas that needed to be improved upon. The registered manager told us they had already met the majority of improvement areas identified in the action plan.