Archived: Allied Healthcare Swindon

Updated 14 December 2015

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.

The inspection took place on 6 October 2015 and was an announced inspection. Notice of the inspection was given to make sure a senior person was available for the inspection. At the time of our inspection the provider was supporting 109 people living in their own homes.

The inspection team consisted of three inspectors, a pharmacy inspector 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.

Prior to the inspection we looked at notifications received from the provider. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to tell us about by law. We spoke to local commissioners of the service.

During our inspection we looked at 15 people's care records. This included the medicines records for seven people. We looked at four staff files and a range of records showing how the service was managed.

We spoke with the care delivery director, the interim manager and five members of the care team.

As part of the inspection we spoke with nine people who used the service and four relatives.

Updated 14 December 2015

We inspected the service Allied Healthcare on 13 April 2015 and 6 July 2015. Allied Healthcare support people living in their own homes with personal care.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 13 April 2015. Following the comprehensive inspection this provider was placed into special measures by CQC. We found the provider was not meeting the legal requirements of four of the fundamental standards. These issues were in relation to the management of medicines and people not receiving their planned visits. We took enforcement action to require the provider to meet the required standards.

We carried out a follow up inspection on 6 July 2015 to check that improvements had been made and to check the provider was meeting their legal requirements in relation to medicine management and missed visits. At the July inspection we found some improvements had been made.

We carried out this comprehensive inspection on 6 October 2015. At this inspection we checked to make sure the provider had taken steps to meet the required standards. We found that significant improvements had been made and the provider has been taken out of special measures.

However, we found there were still concerns relating to the management of medicines, monitoring the quality of the service and protecting people’s rights in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). MCA is a framework to protect the rights of people who may be unable to make some decisions for themselves.

The service did not have a registered manager in post. A manager from another location was overseeing the management of the service. The provider was actively trying to recruit a registered manager. 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.

The manager had made significant improvements and had identified further areas for development. There was a positive atmosphere where people, relatives and staff felt listened to.

Systems for monitoring and scheduling visits were effective. People had not experienced missed visits and when visits were late people were contacted and given a reason for this.

People were positive about the improvements made to the service and told us staff were caring. We heard caring interactions between staff and people when speaking on the telephone.

There was a positive, caring culture between staff. Staff felt supported by the manager and benefitted from regular supervisions. Staff were complimentary about the manager and the changes made to improve the service.

Care plans were personalised and contained detailed information about the support people required to meet their needs.

We found three breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.