About the service: A&M Home Care Services Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. Some of the people supported were living with a dementia type illness or had physical disabilities. At the time of this inspection the service was supporting nine people with personal care tasks.

People’s experience of using this service: At the time of this inspection the registered provider had not been carrying out any quality assurance audits to ensure that people were receiving the right care and support.

This was a breach of Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 related to governance.

Please see the ‘action we have told the provider to take’ section towards the end of the report.

The registered provider told us they had not carried out quality assurance checks because the service had been very small. They had been working ‘hands on’ to help grow the business rather than working in the office. Following our inspection, they informed us that they would implement a range of quality checks. Feedback was sought from people and their relatives, however there was no evidence to show that it had been analysed and acted upon.

Most people spoke very highly of the care staff who supported them and the registered provider who also managed the service.

Risk assessments were in place and acted upon appropriately to reduce any identified risks, however these had not been reviewed and did not have dates and signatures on them. We found some gaps in recruitment records however these were addressed by the registered provider following this inspection.

Staff knew how to safeguard people from abuse. People were supported with their medicines by staff assessed as competent in this area. People told us they received their medicines as prescribed however, we found some gaps in medicine records. We identified some gaps in staff training including for some staff who did not have a qualification in care.

People’s plans of support were very detailed in terms of their preferences. 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. We identified however that some people had one overall capacity assessment rather than decision specific ones.

A system for recording and responding to complaints was in place. The management team worked with other agencies and professionals to meet people’s needs.

The registered provider was very open and honest about the areas of improvement required and sent us information about how the shortfalls identified were being addressed following this inspection.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Rating at last inspection: This was the first inspection of the service since it registered with CQC in October 2017.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on when the service first registered with CQC

Follow up: We will monitor all intelligence received about the service to inform the assessment of the risk profile of the service and to ensure the next planned inspection is scheduled accordingly.