About the service:

Bluebird Care Southend and Rochford provide personal care to people living in their own houses, flats and specialist housing. This is a domiciliary care service and primarily provides a service to older people, older people living with dementia or who may have a physical disability. The domiciliary care service office is close to major bus and train routes.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People told us they were treated with care, kindness, respect and dignity. People and their relatives were consistently encouraging about staffs caring attitude and confirmed there were positive interactions with staff.

• People told us they were safe. The service had effective safeguarding arrangements in place to protect people from harm and abuse.

• People’s care and support needs were clearly documented and staff had a good understanding and knowledge of these and the care to be delivered. Suitable arrangements were in place to manage risk and to ensure people received their medication as they should.

• Suitable numbers of staff were available to meet people’s needs and recruitment arrangements were robust.

• Staff received appropriate training and newly employed staff completed a robust induction. Staff felt valued and supported by the registered provider and manager and received supervision.

• The service ensured they worked collaboratively with others and people were supported to access healthcare services when needed.

• People’s rights were upheld and they were supported by staff in the least restrictive way possible.

• People told us the service was well-led and managed. Quality assurance arrangements enabled the management team to monitor the quality of the service provided and staff performance.

Rating at last inspection:

Following the last inspection, the rating of the service was ‘Good’ (Last report published 22 September 2016).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the service’s previous rating.

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

Bluebird Care Southend and Rochford provides personal care and support to people in their own homes.

The inspection was completed on 22 August 2016 and 30 August 2016. At the time of the inspection there were 54 people who used the service.

The service did not have a registered manager in post. At the time of the inspection the manager confirmed that an application to be formally registered with the Care Quality Commission had been submitted and they were awaiting confirmation of their ‘fit person’ interview. 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.

Staff had a good understanding and knowledge of safeguarding procedures and were clear about the actions they would take to protect the people they supported. Risks to people’s health and wellbeing were appropriately assessed and managed to ensure their safety.

There were sufficient numbers of staff available to meet people’s needs. Appropriate recruitment checks were in place which helped to protect people and ensure staff were suitable to work at the service. Staff told us that they felt well supported in their role and were supervised at regular intervals.

Support plans were sufficiently detailed and provided an accurate description of people’s care and support needs. People were supported to maintain good healthcare and had access to a range of healthcare services. People were supported to be able to eat and drink satisfactory amounts to meet their nutritional and hydration needs.

Staff understood the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Staff demonstrated how to apply the principles of this legislation to their everyday practice and to help ensure that peoples’ rights were protected.

People were treated with kindness and respect by staff. Staff understood people’s needs and provided care and support accordingly. Staff had a good relationship and rapport with the people they supported. People told us that they were treated with respect and dignity.

An effective system was available to respond to complaints and concerns. The provider’s quality assurance arrangements were much improved to ensure that they strived towards continued development, so as to provide a good quality service and to meet regulatory requirements.