This inspection took place on 23 July 2018 and was announced. We gave the provider prior notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to make sure someone would be in the office.

Apex Prime Care – Reading is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people in their own homes. It provides a service to people who have dementia, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, mental health, physical disability, sensory impairment, as well as older people.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with the regulated activity ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Not everyone using the service receives the regulated activity. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection the service was providing personal care to 60 people.

The service had a registered manager 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. The registered manager assisted us during the inspection. This was the first inspection of this service.

The provider had recruitment procedures that they followed before new staff were employed to work with people. They checked to ensure staff were of good character and suitable for their role. However, they did not gather all the necessary information for recruitment of staff according to regulation. They did not seek all the missing information after the inspection. They provided us with a plan of improvement gathering information for future applicants after the inspection.

Staff training records indicated which training was considered mandatory. The registered manager and senior staff had planned and booked training when necessary to ensure all staff had the appropriate knowledge to support people. However, not all staff agreed training was sufficient and informative to ensure people were supported in the right way. Staff did not always have ongoing support via supervisions. Some of the staff did not always feel supported by the management team that could help maintain a better team work. We made a recommendation about the current best practice guidance for ongoing training, monitoring and continuous support for social care staff.

The registered manager had quality assurance systems put in place to monitor the running of the service and the quality of the service being delivered. The registered manager could identify some issues and improvements necessary and they took actions to address these. However, they did not always ensure all tasks were completed as part of the management of the service such as robust recruitment process and submitting notifications on time. The quality assurance system did not always provide an accurate overview of the service.

The registered manager praised the staff team for their hard work and appreciated their contribution to ensure people received the best care and support. However, some staff felt sometimes the registered manager and senior could be more supportive and approachable. They felt communication was not always good, but the staff members worked together and supported each other, which benefited the people. Some of the staff felt there was a lack of team meetings and updates sent to them which could contribute to building a better team.

Occasionally the service had to use agency staff to cover absences. We received feedback about the agency staff, their support and timings from people and relatives that could be improved. All the information was passed to the registered manager and they addressed it with the manager of the agency. However, people and relatives were complimentary of the regu