We spoke with seven staff members which included the training manager and the operations manager.
Training, supervision and team meetings had taken place and staff confirmed this. The training manager told us that training would continue to take place at a location near to where the staff work following the relocation of Ark to Sheffield.
We reviewed recruitment records and quality monitoring information, as these were outstanding from the previous visit. We found improvements in both and found the agency to be compliant on these two regulations. However, whilst reviewing quality monitoring records we also noted that the agency's staff had not all had an appraisal within the last year, and some were overdue for supervision and refresher training. Therefore a new compliance action has been made.
Following this December 2013 follow up visit an Expert by Experience contacted four people by telephone and asked them what they thought about this service. The majority of comments were positive and included "Carers listen to what I ask for and most are nice" and "I've had the service for quite a long time and I've had no problems." Responses on the overall quality of the service were also positive and included "Overall the service provided by ARK is good."
During this visit we also reviewed medicines management and found that people were protected against the risks associated with medicines because the provider had appropriate arrangements in place to manage medicines. However, more work was needed on recruitment records and quality monitoring.
We asked people specifically about the care they received from Ark Woking and the comments were all positive. We were told that people felt involved in their own care, and comments included "The care plan has been explained to me, and I either agree or disagree." However, when we checked care records, some shortfalls were noted. People said they felt safe in the hands of staff from Ark, and were satisfied with how their medicines were administered.
We found some more work was needed by the agency on monitoring the overall quality of the service, and responses on the quality of the service from people who used Ark Woking were mixed, though the majority were satisfied with the service which was described as "Pretty good" and "Excellent."
You can see our judgements on the front page of this report.