This was the first comprehensive inspection of English Rose at their Wellingborough location since the regulated activity of ‘personal care’ was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

English Rose provides a domiciliary care support service providing the regulated activity of ‘personal care’ to people living within their own homes in the community. When we inspected the service predominantly covered the Wellingborough and Kettering areas of Northamptonshire, although several people living in the Bedford area received a service. The service provided included support for people with end of life personal care support needs. There were 19 people receiving support at home when we inspected.

A registered manager was in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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 had not always maintained adequate oversight of the reliability of the service. Some people had experienced late or missed calls or had not always been informed if their care worker was going to be late. Although lessons had been learned and people felt they could now rely on the service the improvements were relatively recent and need to be seen to be sustained.

Some records relating to staff recruitment and the day-to-day running of the service had not always been consistently completed with the necessary details, with dates sometimes left unrecorded and the person completing the record left unidentified. Again, and following a recent internal audit carried out a senior staff member, these shortfalls had already been identified. The improvements made need to be seen to be sustained.

Although staff had received the basic training they needed to do their job training for staff with little or no experience could be further enhanced. It is acknowledged that further training opportunities were being organised when we inspected.

People's consent was sought before any care was provided and the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 were met. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in place at the service supported this practice.

Staffing levels were sufficient to meet people's current needs, although recruiting sufficient staff able to work in the Bedford area had initially proved difficult. There had been previous occasions when providing ‘back-up’ staff to cover for sickness or holidays had compromised the reliability of service, with staff arriving late or relatives having to be contacted to establish if they were able to provide cover because of staff being unavailable. This had been recently resolved when we inspected but the availability of ‘back up’ staff needs to be seen to be sustained in conjunction with the other recent improvements to the service.

The staff recruitment procedures ensured that appropriate pre-employment checks were completed to ensure only suitable staff worked at the service.

People’s needs had been assessed prior their service being agreed. There were plans of care in place that been developed to guide staff in providing care in partnership with people who used the service. Their care records contained risk assessments and risk management plans to mitigate the risks to people. These plans provided staff with guidance and information they needed on how to minimise the identified risks.

Staff treated people with kindness, dignity and respect. People were happy with the way that staff provided their care and support and they said they were encouraged to make decisions about how they wanted their care to be provided.

Staff had a good understanding of what safeguarding meant and the pro