This inspection took place on 9, 15 and 20 August 2018 and was announced.

At the time of our inspection the service was providing small packages of care to 60 people.

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community as well as specialist housing. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks relating to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also take into account any wider social care provided.

There was a registered manager in post.

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.

Staff were recruited safely and checks were made on their character and suitability to work with vulnerable adults. Staff were only allowed to work once these checks came back as satisfactory.

Risks assessments were in place and were reviewed regularly. Risk assessments were suitably detailed and contained information with regards to the management and reduction of risk.

Medication was stored in people's own home and administered safely. Where staff were responsible for administering people's medication this was done by trained staff who had their competency assessed by the registered manager.

Staff were provided with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as gloves and aprons in accordance with the service's infection control procedure.

Staff were aware of safeguarding procedures and were able to describe the action they would take to ensure people were kept safe from harm. This included raising alerts to the registered manager, local authority safeguarding teams, the police, or whistleblowing.

Rotas showed that staff were assigned their care calls using an electric monitoring system (ECM). Staff were issued with smart phones and were required to 'log' in and out of calls to ensure people were getting their allocated time.

The registered manager and the staff understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and associated legislation.

People were supported by staff with eating and drinking and staff were aware of people’s dietary preferences.

Staff supported people to contact other healthcare professionals such as GP’s and District Nurses if they felt unwell.

Staff undertook training in accordance with the registered providers training policy. Staff told us they enjoyed the training. Training was a mixture of e-learning and practical training sessions. Some training had expired; however staff were booked on to attend these courses. Staff spoken with confirmed they had regular supervision and an annual appraisal. Some supervisions were due to take place, these had been scheduled in by the end of August.

People we spoke with were complimentary about the caring nature of the staff and we received positive comments about the registered manager. We did not observe care being delivered, however, people told us staff were kind and caring in their approach.

People told us that they were always kept informed and involved in their care.

Care plans contained basic information about people, what their preferences were and how they liked their care to be conducted. Information in care plans was regularly reviewed and updated in line with people’s changing needs. This meant that the registered provider was responsive to people’s needs and preferences.

Complaints were investigated in line with the complaints procedure and responded to appropriately.

Audits took place which checked service provision and action plans were implemented to improve practice. A new auditing tool had recently been in