We carried out this announced inspection on 24 and 27 February 2017.

Allways Care is owned by a company called SBL Care Ltd. It is a domiciliary care service based in Skegness, Lincolnshire. Care workers provide personal care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of our inspection the service was providing support for 67 people. 38 of the people were receiving personal care. This is the regulated activity the service is registered with us for.

This was our first inspection of the service since the provider changed their registration status to a limited company on 7 September 2016.

There was an established 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 knew how to keep people safe from situations in which they might experience abuse and people had been supported to avoid preventable accidents. Medicines were managed safely and people had been helped to obtain all of the healthcare they needed. There were enough care staff available to provider the care people needed and visits were completed in the right way.

Staff had received the training and guidance the provider had identified as required of them and staff knew how to support people with the personal support they needed. People had been assisted to eat and drink enough and they had been consulted about the care they wanted and needed to receive.

CQC is required by law to monitor how registered persons apply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and to report on what we find. The registered manager and care staff had received training in this subject and this enabled them to help people make decisions for themselves. When people lacked the capacity to make their own decisions the principles of the MCA and codes of practice were followed. This helped to protect people’s rights by ensuring decisions were made that were in their best interests.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff recognised people’s right to privacy and promoted their dignity. Confidential information was kept private.

People had been consulted about how best to develop the service. Good team work was promoted by the registered persons and people and staff were supported to speak out if they had any concerns.

The provider and registered manager had a range of quality checks in place which had been completed and were on-going to make sure that people reliably received all of the care they needed.