Our inspection took place on 14 August 2017 and was announced.

Baxters Homecare was established in 2016 and provides a care at home service to younger and older adults in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey. The service has a particular interest in the care of people with life-limiting conditions. Only personal care is regulated by us, and our inspection has excluded evidence about other support types offered by the service. At the time of our inspection, the service provided care to about eight people. There were approximately eight staff.

The service must have a registered manager. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager.

This is our first inspection of the service since their change in registration with us. The service changed their regulated activities since our last inspection.

We found people were protected against abuse or neglect. People had personalised risk assessments tailored to their support requirements. We saw sufficient staff were deployed to provide people’s support. People’s medicines were safely managed.

Staff received very good induction, training, supervision and support. This ensured their knowledge, skills and experience were appropriate for their caring roles. Staff set themselves goals about people’s care and these were regularly reviewed to see how staff could further improve their development. The service used nationally-recognised methods of assessing, managing and monitoring people’s end of life care.

We saw people’s consent was obtained before care packages commenced. People were sometimes supported with their nutrition and hydration.

Staff at Baxters Homecare were very caring. The service had received multiple compliments about the care received. We found people’s care was dignified and staff maintained people’s privacy.

The service had appropriately considered communication barriers in the provision of personal care and implemented strategies to ensure people and their relatives could have effective conversations with staff in line with the Accessible Information Standard. People had appropriate care plans in place which were regularly reviewed. We found the plans contained detailed information relevant to each person who used the service. There was an appropriate complaints system in place and the registered manager handled any concerns promptly.

The service was well-led. There was a positive workplace culture and staff felt that management listened to what they had to say. We saw the management used tools to measure the safety and quality of care. The service had developed strong relationships with the social and healthcare community in the area.