Archived: Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a domiciliary care agency that is registered to support people with personal care in their own homes and within supported living settings. At the time of this inspection no one was being supported in a supported living setting and 13 people were being supported in their own homes.

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.

We undertook this inspection at the same time as CQC inspected a range of urgent and emergency care services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. To understand the experience of social care Providers and people who use social care services, we asked a range of questions in relation to accessing urgent and emergency care. The responses we received have been used to inform and support system wide feedback.

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

Staff knew the people they supported well. People and their relatives told us staff were kind, polite and respectful. There were enough knowledgeable and trained staff to help assist people’s care and support requirements. The registered manager would also cover care call visits to ensure no calls were missed. People and their relatives told us that staff were punctual to their care call visits. They also told us there had not been any missed visits.

Staff were trained and were able to develop their skills and career through further training and taking on additional responsibilities within their role. Trained staff had medicines administration spot checks undertaken to look at their competency. Staff were encouraged to discuss and review their performance with their registered manager through supervision and appraisals. Potential new staff to the service had checks carried out on them. This helped ensure they were suitable to work with the people they supported. New staff also had to complete an induction. This included shadowing a more experienced staff member on care call visits.

People and their relatives told us the support from staff made them and their family member feel safe. Staff demonstrated their understanding of how to keep people safe from poor care or harm. Staff knew they should report any concerns they may have had to their registered manager or to external organisations such as the local authority or the CQC.

Not everyone wanted to discuss their end of life wishes. Where they did, staff had access to information on people’s end of life wishes to guide them. This would help the person have as dignified a death as possible. Staff had access to information in peoples’ care plans and risk assessments that helped guide them to care and support people effectively. Staff had plenty of single use personal protective equipment, such as gloves, aprons and face masks. Infection control practices were in place to reduce the risk of cross contamination. Lessons were learnt and shared with staff when things went wrong or there was a risk of this.

Most people did not require the support of staff with their food and drink. Where staff did support with this there were no concerns and choices were given and respected by staff. Staff helped promote and maintain people’s privacy and dignity. Staff also encouraged people and their relatives to be involved in discussions around their family members support and care needs. People felt listened to, respected and their choices valued by staff.

The registered manager and staff, would work with external health and social care professionals. This would help people to receive joined up care and support. Where complaints about the service had been received, they were investigated, and actions taken as a result of learning to try to reduce the risk of recurrence. People and their relatives said communication was good.

People, and their relatives and staff were asked to feedback on the service. Information was available in different formats to help enable the persons understanding.

The registered manager sent staff any guidance and legislation updates. This helped staff to work with the most up to date guidance. Audits were undertaken to monitor the quality of the service provided and drive forward any improvements needed.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 16 June 2020 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This is the first inspection since the service registered with the CQC on 16 June 2020.

This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.