Bridge Care Services Limited

This inspection was to check satisfactory improvements had been made and to review the ratings. The provider sent us an action plan that detailed how they would make improvements to become compliant with the regulations. At this inspection we found improvements to the service and the regulations were met.

Bridge Care Services is a domiciliary care agency that provides support to people who live in their own home, both older people and some younger adults with disabilities. They provide a service throughout the Stockport area to people who have a service commissioned via the local authority and to people who are privately funded. The office is situated in the centre of Marple on the first floor of an office building. The office did not have a lift or disabled facilities. However, the registered manager advised they would always make arrangements to see people in their own home to meet their needs.

A registered manager was in place. 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.

We received positive comments from relatives and people receiving support. Overall, they were very positive about the service provided with lots of opinions made about how staff got to know them and provided very personal care and support.

The registered manager had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service. Governance systems had been developed to show appropriate management and review of the service.

Staff were given appropriate support through a programme of training and on-going supervision, and an annual appraisal. Staff said the training provided them with the skills and knowledge they needed to do their jobs.

Staff were aware of their responsibilities in keeping people safe and had received training in safeguarding adults. Staff responsible for supporting people with their medicines had received training to ensure they had the competency and skills required.

The provider had a safe system for the recruitment of staff and was taking appropriate steps to ensure the suitability of workers.

People told us that staff usually arrived on time, and they generally had no issues about staff turning up for duty. The service had a monitoring system that continually checked the promptness of their visits and could take action, if staff were running late for any reason.

Support plans contained up to date, information about each person's care and support. The registered manager used a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of the service. They carried out a regular checks and visits to each person to make sure the care and support was a good standard and met each person's needs.

There was a complaints procedure in place. The majority of people who used the service told us they knew how they could raise a complaint if they needed to and had no hesitation to approach staff about any issues.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found