This location was archived on 6 July 2018.
This inspection took place at the service offices on 20 and 28 September 2017. We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice as we needed to be sure that a manager would be available to participate in the inspection. Telephone interviews for staff where conducted on the, 3, 6 and12 October 2017.
The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector and a medicines inspector at the agency office on the first day and two adult care inspectors and medicines inspector on the second day. In addition to this, two Experts by Experience conducted telephone calls to people using the service on the first day of inspection. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
At the time of our inspection 140 people were being supported under the regulated activity by the service. Additional people were also supported by the service for cleaning and shopping visits.
Prior to the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service, including statutory notifications. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also reviewed the information we held, including action plans, complaints, safeguarding information and previous inspection reports. In addition to this we contacted the local authority contract monitoring team and safeguarding team who provided us with any relevant information they held about the service.
During the inspection we spoke with 22 people who used the service and eight of their relatives. We also spoke with 18 staff members, including the registered manager and regional manager. We looked at the care records of 15 people who used the service and other associated documents such as policies and procedures, safety and quality audits and quality assurance surveys. We also looked at 10 staff personnel and training files, service agreements, 40 staff rotas, minutes of staff meeting.