This announced inspection took place on 28 and 29 June 2018.

This service 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 adults. At the time of inspection, the provider was supporting 10 people with personal care.

Not everyone using Person Centered Care Northants receives 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 take into account any wider social care provided.

There was a registered manager in post, they were also the provider. 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.

At our last inspection on the 29 April 2016, we rated the service "Good." At this inspection we found that the service 'Required Improvement.'

Improvements were required to the systems in place to ensure the effective governance and management of the service. The provider had not ensured that the necessary documentation was in place to provide staff with information on environmental risks in people’s homes and guide them in how to support people safely in an emergency. Some policies and procedures were not in place as needed. Policies and procedures that were in place required review.

People told us that they felt comfortable and safe with the staff team who visited them. Relatives agreed their relatives were supported in a safe way by the staff who were allocated to provide their support.

Staff understood their responsibilities to keep people safe from harm and to report potential risks to their safety.

People received their medicines as prescribed and staff supported people to access support from healthcare professionals when required. The service worked with other organisations to ensure that people received coordinated and person-centred care and support.

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 involved in their own care planning and were able to contribute to the way in which they were supported.

Staff treated people with kindness, dignity and respect and spent time getting to know them and their specific needs and wishes.

Staff recruitment procedures ensured that appropriate pre-employment checks were carried out to ensure only suitable staff worked at the service. Staffing levels ensured that people's care and support needs were safely met.

Staff induction training and on-going training was provided to ensure that staff had the skills, knowledge and support they needed to perform their roles. Staff were well supported by the provider and senior staff, and had regular supervision meetings.

Staff told us they had the appropriate personal protective equipment to perform their roles safely. Staff supported people in a way which prevented the spread of infection.

The provider had a process in place which ensured people could raise any complaints or concerns.

There were arrangements in place for the service to make sure that action was taken and lessons learned when things went wrong, to improve safety across the service.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.

This domiciliary care inspection took place over two days on 29 April and 4 May 2016.

Person Centred Care is a small domiciliary care agency that provides care and support to adults with a wide range of needs, including people with physical and mental health needs. Staff are provided to enable people living at home to retain their independence and continue living in the community.

When we inspected the service provided care and support to 14 people. The service is predominantly provided to people living in the Kettering, Wellingborough and Rushden areas of Northamptonshire.

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.

People benefited from receiving support from staff that were caring, friendly, and responsive to people’s changing needs. People were supported in their own homes by trained staff that were able to meet their needs safely. Staff were able to demonstrate that they understood what was required of them to provide people with the safe care they needed to remain living at home.

People’s care plans reflected their needs and choices about how they preferred their care and support to be provided. People were treated with dignity and their right to make day-to-day choices about how they preferred their care to be provided was respected.

There were sufficient numbers of staff employed to meet people’s assessed needs. People were protected from the risks associated with the recruitment of staff unsuited to the role by robust recruitment systems. Risk assessments were also in place to reduce and manage the risks to people’s health and welfare.

People benefitted from a service that was appropriately managed so that people received their service in a timely and reliable way. People had been kept informed in a timely way whenever staff were unavoidably delayed, or when another member of staff had to be substituted at short notice.

There were systems in place in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service and where appropriate and necessary people’s relatives or significant others were consulted about the service people received. People’s rights were protected. People knew how to raise concerns and complaints. There were procedures in place to ensure complaints were appropriately investigated and action was taken to make improvements to the service when necessary.

We visited the main offices of the Provider where we reviewed policies and procedures relating to the delivery of services and staff recruitment.

At the time of our inspection the Provider was delivering personal care services to only one person. This was a 24 hour care package over seven days of the week. We looked through the care plan and we spoke with members of staff.

The mother of the person who used services told us, “I am very happy with things. Everything is running smoothly.”

We saw that the care plan was based on the assessed needs and requirements of the person using the service. The care plan was detailed and took account of individual needs and how these would be supported.

The Provider had clear recruitment policies in place and we saw that they had been applied appropriately. We also saw that the Provider's policy and procedures for managing Quality Assurance would benefit from review and updating. However, we saw that the practical systems in place did mean that services were reviewed and any concerns were managed appropriately.