We inspected Amber Home Carers on 11 December 2017. This was an announced inspection. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager was often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

Amber Home Carers is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It was providing a service to 121 people at the time of this inspection.

At the previous inspection in November 2015 we found the service was meeting the required standards. At this inspection the service continued to meet the standards.

A registered manager was 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.

People and their relatives told us that staff were kind, respectful and caring. They said that the service provided was consistent, of high quality and personalised to people’s individual needs. The service asked people about the care they wanted and involved them in making day to day decisions about the support being provided, helping them remain independent where appropriate.

People and their relatives told us that they had regular staff visiting who were punctual and communicated well with them. There were systems to safeguard people from abuse. Staff completed safeguarding training and knew how to report any concerns.

People were supported by staff who were trained and well supported in their job roles. Staff members had been safely recruited and had received an induction to the service.

Staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE) for the prevention and control of infection.

Staff had received training in the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and understood the importance of gaining people’s consent before assisting them.

The service completed assessments of people’s needs and these were used to inform the care plan for each person. The service kept people’s needs under review and made changes as required.

People and their relatives felt able to raise any concerns or complaints. There was a procedure in place for people to follow if they wanted to raise any issues. We discussed with the registered manager how people had expressed dissatisfaction with poor communication between the agency and themselves. The registered manager was able to identify the cause of this and was now in a position to improve the quality of communication between the agency and people.

The service promoted a culture that was person centred, open and inclusive. People using the service and their relatives said that Amber Home Carers was well managed and responsive to their needs.