A Caring Touch is a small community service that provides care and support to people of all ages, in their own homes. The service provides help with people’s personal and social care needs in Truro and the surrounding area.

The service mainly provides care and support for people in visits at key times of the day to help people get up in the morning, go to bed at night and give support with meals. This includes supporting people with dementia care needs.

At the time of our inspection 19 people were receiving a service. These services were funded either privately or through Cornwall Council.

There was a registered manager in post. 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. The registered manager was also the owner and provider of the service and is referred to as the provider in this report.

We carried out this announced inspection on 26 July 2016. We told the provider four days before that we would be carrying out this inspection. This is in line with the current methodology for inspection of domiciliary care agencies, to ensure the provider would be present at the office of the service at the time of the inspection. The service has not been inspected before at its current location.

Information regarding people’s specific care and support needs including any risks were mostly communicated verbally to the care staff by the provider. The provider did not always record, in people’s care files, all the information staff needed to care and support people safely.

Care plans contained information about people’s past history and their current care and support needs. However, the care plans did not always contain sufficient information to direct and inform staff on how to meet those needs in accordance with the individual's preferences and choices.

Risks to people and staff had been identified. For example, environmental and moving and handling risks. However, such risks had not been fully recorded once assessed and staff were not provided with written guidance on how to reduce the specific risks to people and themselves.

A Caring Touch held policies and procedures that had not always been updated to take account of changes in practice. Information provided in some polices was not accurate.

Recruitment processes were not robust. Two staff, who had been working for the service for several months, did not have appropriate references that had been taken up by the provider before they commenced working alone in people's homes. Induction training and support provided to new staff was not recorded.

A supervision policy held by the service, stated staff would receive recorded supervision every three months, with an appraisal every year. Staff told us they felt well supported but did not receive formally recorded support in line with this policy.

People told us they had not had any missed visits and were very happy with the service they received. However, the provider did not have a process for monitoring when people received their scheduled visits. The provider was reliant on the person, their family, friends or neighbours to raise a concern if a visit had been missed or was late.

Staff had not received recent training in how to recognise and report abuse. The service did not have an accurate up to date safeguarding policy and procedure available for staff to refer to. Staff were not clear about how to report any concerns they may have outside of the service. However, staff were confident that any allegations made to the provider would be fully investigated to help ensure people were protected.

The service provided care and support to people who were living with dementia. The provider had an understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005