About with Friends provides personal care for people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, 10 people were using the service. This was a first comprehensive ratings inspection of this service.

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.

The service was safe. Individual risks to people’s health and wellbeing had been identified and steps to manage and mitigate known risks were taken. Risk assessments of people’s homes had been carried out and this helped to ensure that staff would be able to care for people in a safe environment.

Staff had received training in safeguarding adults and understood the procedures for reporting any concerns.

There were enough staff to safely ensure that people’s care and support needs were met and people’s visits were always covered. There were also safe recruitment practices in place. This meant that only staff who were suitable to care for people were employed by the service.

People were supported to receive their medicines in a safe way by staff who had undergone the appropriate training in this area.

There was a comprehensive training programme for staff and staff could access courses which would enable them to gain an in depth knowledge of conditions that the people they cared for were living with. Staff were further supported through regular supervisions and appraisals with the registered manager.

Staff had a good understanding of people’s individual capacity to make decisions and always sought people’s consent before delivering any care to people.

People were sometimes supported with meal preparation and maintaining a healthy nutritional intake. Staff would support people with accessing healthcare professionals where there were concerns about a person’s health.

Staff were caring and enjoyed working in the service. They had a good understanding of person centred care and made every effort to involve people in their care. Staff understood people’s care and support needs well. People felt they could approach staff and felt listened to.

People’s privacy and dignity was respected by staff who understood how people preferred to have their care delivered.

People’s care plans were reviewed and updated when necessary. The care plans were detailed and gave clear guidance about how people liked to be cared for. People’s care was individualised and people’s needs were accommodated wherever possible.

There was a complaints procedure in place and people felt able to raise a concern if needed and knew who they would report their concerns to.

The service was run with the people who used it. The provider, registered manager and the staff were clear that people using the service should be at the heart of everything. People were involved in the running of the service wherever possible.

There were systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of service being delivered and the provider and registered manager are continually making improvements about how they can best assess the quality of the service people receive.