Date of assessment: 9 February to 10 March 2026. Short Term Assessment and Re-ablement Service (STARS) is a homecare agency providing care and support to people living in their own homes and flats. The service provides care to people following a stay in hospital or due to a change in care and support needs following an illness. Care is typically provided for up to 6 weeks. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. At the time of the assessment the service was supporting 64 people receiving personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene, eating and medication administration. People’s care needs were assessed, and care plans provided staff with the information they needed to provide personalised care. Risk assessments were completed and provided staff with information they needed to manage identified risk. People and their families were involved in reviews of care and people were supported to achieve desired goals. The service worked well with other healthcare professionals and supported people to receive the care they needed. Staff had safeguarding training and knew how to keep people safe and protect them from the risks of abuse. The management team had excellent oversight of the service, completing audits, holding meetings and speaking regularly with staff. There was a strong culture of learning and development within the service and a desire to continuously improve. Staff felt supported to give feedback and were treated equally. The management team were passionate about providing personalised, high quality care and were visible, knowledgeable and supportive. Medicines were managed safely, by competent staff and a review of the medication administration records (MARs) was regularly conducted by the provider.
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The Short Term Assessment and Re-ablement Service (STARS) in Rochdale received an overall rating of Requires Improvement following inspection on 4–5 July 2016, with four regulatory breaches identified covering medicines management, consent, person-centred care planning and governance. The service demonstrated clear strengths in staff caring attitudes, training and supervision, but failed to ensure safe medicines administration, person-centred support plans or documented consent for care.
Concerns (9)
criticalMedication management: “two Paracetamol had been administered at 18:25, 20:40, 08:30, 11:30 and 16:50, meaning a total of ten had been administered within a 24 hour period”
criticalCare planning: “Support plans did not show people had been involved in designing care and support to meet their individual needs and preferences or direct staff on how to meet those needs”
criticalConsent / capacity: “support plans that were in place did not contain a signature or evidence that the person had been involved in and consented to the support being given”
moderateMedication management: “MAR's did not contain two signatures to confirm the hand written entry was correct. Best practice guidance recommends that hand written MAR's are checked and signed by two staff members”
moderateMedication management: “medicines policy contained out of date information or information that the service was not following”
moderateCare planning: “identified needs were also pre-populated, such as wash, dress, continence care, shower/bath and staff were to circle relevant ones”
moderateGovernance: “Not all the policies and procedures in place contained correct information to guide staff in their roles and responsibilities”
moderateRecord keeping: “no process to document the amount of medicines the person had been discharged with and that staff were responsible for administering”
minorSafeguarding: “once the initial check had been completed the service did not do any further checks in the future to ascertain if a staff member had received any cautions or convictions”
Strengths
· People and external professionals consistently praised staff as kind, caring and supportive, with 100% of survey respondents strongly agreeing staff were caring and kind.
· Staff completed all mandatory training including safeguarding, infection control, medicines administration, MCA and DoLS.
· Regular individual and group supervisions were conducted, with annual appraisals and performance goal setting.
· Adequate staffing levels were maintained with 24/7 cover; all people spoken with confirmed staff spent the required amount of time with them.
· Robust risk assessment process in place, commenced prior to first visit and updated by care staff on arrival.
The Short Term Assessment and Re-ablement Service (STARS) in Rochdale was rated Good across all five key questions following a January 2018 inspection. The service had successfully addressed all four regulatory breaches identified at the previous July 2016 inspection, including medicines administration, consent, care plan personalisation and out-of-date policies.
Strengths
· Staff described as reliable, trustworthy and caring, with people consistently reporting they felt safe
· Medicines administration improved since last inspection with dual-staff MAR signing and competency checks
· Robust staff recruitment with DBS checks, references and identity verification
· Comprehensive induction, training and regular supervision including monthly one-to-ones for new staff
· Care plans developed collaboratively with people, signed consent obtained, and regularly reviewed