This announced inspection took place on 4, 5 and 12 October 2018 and was the first comprehensive inspection for this service.

Hanslope and Castlethorpe is a domiciliary care agency which is also known as Hanslope Care. It provides personal care to older people living in their own houses and flats in the community. Not everyone using this service receives the regulated activity; The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

The service did 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.

Improvements were required to ensure safe recruitment practices were embedded into how the service operated. Staff were not always recruited according to safe recruitment practices and the registered manager had not ensured they had a robust recruitment policy in place.

Improvements were required to how risk assessments were completed to ensure staff had adequate guidance about people’s individual needs.

People provided feedback which highlighted that staff went above normal expectations. Staff were considerate and thoughtful and took extra time to ensure all of people’s needs were considered and supported. This included helping people with additional jobs they could not manage on their own. Staff took on extra responsibilities and were passionate about the care they provided for people.

People received support with their medicines if they wished and systems were in place to record and report safeguarding incidents. Staffing arrangements were flexible to meet the needs of the people that were using the service.

People’s needs were fully considered before they began to use the service to make sure their needs could be met. People's consent was gained before their care was provided. 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 the service supported this practice.

People were treated with dignity and respect and staff were able to get to know people by seeing the same people on a regular basis. People were encouraged to be independent and to make their own choices.

People had care plans in place which reflected their needs and these were updated when people’s needs changed. Complaint procedures were in place for people to make a complaint, and the registered manager had a good understanding of the requirements of end of life care.

People and staff had opportunities to provide their feedback and this was fully considered and acted on. The registered manager had quality assurance systems in place to review the quality of the service and took action to make improvements where required. However, we have made a recommendation to review these audits to ensure they proactively identify the required improvements and adhere to all regulations.