About the service: Mears Care Limited - Maidstone is registered as a domiciliary care agency, providing personal care to people in their own homes in the community and within sheltered housing. They provide services to any people who need care and support. The agency provides care services to people living in Kent. There were 151 people receiving support to meet their personal care needs on the days we inspected. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with personal care, where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

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

People’s experience of using this service:

¿ People and their relatives told us the agency had improved for the better since the last inspection. People were happy with the care and support they received from staff. One person said, “The carer I have got is absolutely brilliant. She does everything for me really; I would be totally lost without her.”

¿ The management team had started to review and update people’s care records with them. However, some records had not been reviewed and updated despite changes to their needs.

¿ Care records were not consistently personalised nor did they contain all the knowledge from staff working with them at each care call.

¿ People’s safety in the event of a fire at an extra care housing scheme had not always been assessed. Other potential risks posed to people and staff had been mitigated.

¿ Records to show how decisions were made on behalf of people who lacked capacity did not always evidence how particular decisions were made in their best interests.

¿ The registered manager had a continuous improvement plan which they were working through. Several changes had been made since the last inspection however, the management team continued to make further improvements.

¿ There were enough staff to meet people’s needs. Staff had been recruited safely following the provider’s policy and procedure.

¿ People received their medicines safely from staff that were trained and competency assessed.

¿ Staff were supported in their role and received continuous training and development to meet people’s needs.

¿ Staff were kind, caring and patient with people. Information about people’s personal histories, likes and dislikes had been recorded within their care records. One person said, “They are very kind and caring. They are very friendly. They are very nice people.”

¿ Staff worked alongside health care professionals to promote people’s health and nutrition.

¿ Communication was promoted through regular newsletters to people.

¿ Regular audits were used to monitor and improve the quality of the service people received

The agency met the characteristics of Requires Improvement in Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well-led; The Caring key question was rated as Good.

Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement overall with Inadequate in well-led (Report published 3 December 2018). This service has been rated Requires Improvement at the last inspection and this inspection.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.

Enforcement: Action we told provider to take refer to end of full report

Follow up: We will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our inspection schedule for those services rated Requires Improvement.