This was the first inspection of Your Life (Leeds) since it was registered in August 2016.

Your Life (Leeds) is registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides services to people living within a McCarthy and Stone assisted living development known as, Thackrah Court, which is located in the suburbs of Leeds. The assisted living development consists of retirement flats, which people purchase, together with communal facilities, including a restaurant. The Your Life (Leeds) office is located within the assisted living development. People can live at Thackrah Court without needing personal care from the service, or from other care agencies. At the time of our inspection, there were four people receiving personal care from the service.

There was registered manager for 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. We have referred to the registered manager as ‘the manager’ throughout this report.

People told us they felt safe and that care staff were reliable, consistent, did not rush and provided their medicines support when this was required. Known risks to people were assessed to enable care staff to manage these safely. Safe recruitment procedures were followed to ensure people who used the service were not exposed to care staff who may pose a potential risk to their wellbeing. Care staff knew how to report concerns about people’s welfare and had confidence in the manager taking appropriate action when this was required. There were sufficient numbers of staff available to meet people’s needs.

Care staff were provided with a range of training to enable them to effectively meet people’s needs. Care staff performance was monitored through supervision and appraisals of their skills and they had opportunities to develop their careers. The service was following the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to ensure people’s human and legal rights were promoted. There were no restrictions of people’s liberty at the time of this inspection, and no-one had needed to be referred to the Court of Protection because of concerns about a deprivation of their liberty. The service supported people’s nutritional needs.

Care staff maintained people’s confidentiality whilst upholding their rights for privacy. People told us they were treated with dignity and respect by care staff who knew them well. Care staff understood people’s individual preferences and needs to ensure a personalised service was delivered. Opportunities were provided for people to enable them to participate in a range of activities to ensure their wellbeing was promoted and enable risks of social isolation to be reduced.

A complaints procedure was in place to ensure people’s concerns were addressed and acted on appropriately. People were encouraged to provide feedback about the service to enable it to learn and develop. People told us that management was approachable and care staff said they enjoyed their work. A range of management audits were carried out to enable the quality of the service to be monitored and acted on where this was required to enable the service to continually develop.