Umbrella House provides personal care to children and young adults in their own home. On the day of the inspection the manager informed us that 12 children and young adults were receiving support.

This inspection took place on 7 February 2018 and was undertaken by one inspector and was unannounced.

A registered manager was in post at the time of the inspection visit. This is a condition of the registration of the service. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People's risk assessments provided staff with information on how to support people safely, these were regularly reviewed and updated.

Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their CQC responsibilities in this area. CQC is the independent regulator of all health and social care in England. We are given powers by the government to register, monitor and inspect all health and care services.

All new members of staff had checks completed to ensure they were appropriate to work with the people who used the service. People we spoke with told us that they thought staff supported people's safety. They also thought that medicines were given safely and on time.

The local authority stated that they had no concerns regarding the delivery of service, quality of support or safeguarding. They said that staff were ready to adjust and amend support to meet the changing needs of the people..

Staff had been trained to ensure that they had the skills and knowledge to meet people's needs.

Staff understood their main responsibility under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, for people to have an effective choice about how they lived their lives.

People told us that their child or young adult receiving support was happy and liked the staff who supported them.

Care plans were developed for the individual and centred around their needs and choices. Activities were organised for people to enable integration into the local community if they chose to do so.

People we spoke with told us that they would tell staff if they had any concerns and were confident these would be quickly and appropriately dealt with. They also confirmed that there was regular communication with the registered manager and other members of staff.

Umbrella House provides personal care for children and young people living in their own homes. On the day the inspection the registered manager informed us that there were 18 children and young people receiving a service from the agency.

A registered manager was in place. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Relatives we spoke with said they thought the agency ensured that their children received safe personal care. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.

Risk assessments helped staff to understand how to support children safely.

We saw that medicines were given safely and on time, to protect children's health needs.

Staff had been safety recruited to help ensure they were appropriate to work with the children who received personal care from the service.

Staff had training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to be able to meet children's needs, though more specialist awareness of children's individual needs was not fully in place, which could have a potential impact on meeting children's needs.

Staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, children to have effective choice about how they lived their lives.

Relatives told us that children had been assisted to eat and drink and everyone told us they thought the food prepared by staff was satisfactory.

Staff had awareness of children's health care needs so they were in a position to refer to health care professionals if needed.

Relatives we spoke with told us they and their children liked the staff and got on very well with them, and we were told of many examples of staff working with children and their families in a friendly, encouraging and caring way.

Children and their relatives, were involved in making decisions about how personal care was to be provided.

Care plans were individual to the children using the service, which covered their health and social care needs.

Relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns and were confident any issues would be followed up.

Relatives and staff were satisfied with how the agency was run by the registered manager.

Management carried out audits and checks to ensure the agency was running properly. However, audits did not include the checking of all issues needed to provide a quality service.