About the service:

Elite Care Agency is a domiciliary care agency (DCA) registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes in the Bicester area. The service supports mainly older people and at the time of the inspection the service was providing personal care and support to 56 people.

There was a change in provider in April 2019. However, the service continued to operate from the same office with the same staff team.

People’s experience of using this service:

People and their relatives gave us positive feedback about the service and staff. They described the staff as caring and supportive. People's privacy and dignity was respected by staff. People were supported to be independent and were in control of the support they received. People confirmed that the staff team were, “Always positive ambassadors of Elite.” Staff had built trusting and caring relationships with people as they worked with the same people and could spend time developing meaningful relationships.

People's care plans were individual and described their needs and preferences, although some information was incorrect which the registered manager dealt with shortly after the inspection. Care plans were person centred and informative. Individual risks were identified, and staff had risk management guidelines to inform the support they provided to people.

To ensure people were safely supported the registered manager and new provider were in the process of arranging staff training and reviewing people’s and staff records. This was due to the improvements that needed to be made in these areas.

People were supported to access health professionals and maintain good diet and nutrition. Staff worked well with other health and social care professionals to help people receive coordinated support.

People's rights were respected, and they were encouraged to give their views on the service. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The registered manager was clear about their roles and responsibilities and led by example. Staff spoke favourably about the support they received and recognised that changes and continuous improvements would be made under the new provider.

Rating at last inspection: Under the previous provider the service was rated Good. Report published 2 June 2016.

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled, planned inspection based on the service's previous rating under the previous provider.

Follow up: Going forward we will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our inspection schedule for those services rated as Good.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk