This announced inspection took place on 12 December 2018. We gave 48 hours' notice of our intention to visit the provider’s office to make sure people we needed to speak with were available. At the time of our inspection 41 people were receiving support from the service.

My Homecare Huddersfield is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to older adults, including people living with dementia and younger disabled adults living in the Huddersfield area. Not everyone using My Homecare Huddersfield receives a service which is a regulated activity; 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 consider any wider social care provided.

This was the first time this service was inspected since registering on 27 March 2017. During this inspection, we found one breach of regulation in relation to consent to care.

At the time of this inspection the service had a manager who had not registered to manage the service; they were also the nominated individual for the service. The previous registered manager had left the service less than a month before our inspection and we saw evidence that the provider was actively trying to recruit another manager. It is a legal requirement that the service has a registered manager 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 provider was not compliant with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). The manager had a good understanding of how to support people who required best interest decisions made on their behalf, however, they were not completing decision specific mental capacity assessments and best interest decisions. We recommend the provider researches and implements best practice guidance to ensure specific decisions made in people's best interest are appropriately completed and recorded.

People’s medicines were not always managed safely. We found medicines administration sheets were not always completed as required and changes to people’s medicines were not double signed and dated to prevent any errors. There were no protocols in place in relation to the correct management and administration of ‘as and when required’ medicines. We found medication audits were being completed however these were not always effective in identifying the issues found at this inspection. Staff were trained in the safe administration of medication and their competency to complete this task regularly assessed. We recommend the provider researches and implements best practice guidance to ensure people’s medicines are always managed safely.

The provider’s management of risks and care planning required improvement. We found some risks to people’s care had been assessed and details of the support required were in place, however, some other risks had a very succinct assessment and did not give enough guidance to staff. We found there was limited information in relation to the care of one person who required end of life care. Staff had a good understanding of how to support people safely and knew what to do if they had concerns about people's safety.

Most people told us they felt safe due to the support they received from staff. Staff and management had completed safeguarding adults training and knew how to keep people safe and report concerns.

Staff were recruited safely. There were always enough staff to provide people with the care and support they needed. We received mixed views from people in relation to the continuity of the staff supporting them and the manager told us this was an area they were a