Bluebird Care (Guildford and Waverley) is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people in their own homes throughout Guildford, Woking and Waverley local Authority districts. The agency provides care for people living with physical frailty, dementia, mental health needs and people who require rehabilitation following hospital discharge. The service ranges from a quick ‘pop in’ visit to check on wellbeing to multiple daily visits and can also provide long term live in care staff. At the time of our inspection the agency was supporting over 100 people with personal care in their own homes.

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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager was present for the duration of the inspection.

Care workers knew how to keep people safe. They understood their responsibilities under safeguarding procedures. Staff told us they would report anything that looked like abuse to the registered manager who they said would deal with issues immediately. They said they were required to attend safeguarding training every year which was compulsory.

Staff recruitment procedures were safe. The provider had undertaken appropriate safety checks to ensure that only suitable staff were employed to support people in their own home. Staff met with their line manager on a one to one basis to discuss their work. Staff said they felt supported to undertake their roles.

The agency had procedures in place to manage medicines safely and ensured only suitably qualified staff administered medicines to people.

Risks to people had been identified, assessed and well managed. Information was provided to staff on how to care for people in order to reduce any risks.

The registered manager logged any accidents and incidents that occurred and put measures in place for staff to follow to mitigate any further accidents or incidents.

People’s consent to care and treatment was considered. Staff understood the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and about people’s capacity to make decisions.

People told us staff were kind and caring and respected their privacy and dignity. They said staff were polite and professional at all times.

Staff received a good range of training specific to people’s needs. This allowed them to carry out their role in an effective and competent way.

The registered manager undertook quality assurance audits to ensure the care provided was of a standard people should expect. Any areas identified as needing improvement were addressed by the registered manager to drive improvement and provide better services for people.

If an emergency occurred for example adverse weather conditions or an outbreak of staff sickness people’s care would not be interrupted as there were procedures in place to manage this.

A complaints procedure was available for any concerns. This was included in the information pack people were given when they engaged the services of the agency. People knew how to make a complaint but said they never used the formal process. They said if they were unsatisfied with anything they would ring the office where a competent administration team would resolve any issues immediately.

We looked at records in the agency’s office relating to the care of people and the management of the service. These included care plans, risk assessments, medicine records, staff recruitment and training files and a range of policies and procedures. These were well maintained and regularly monitored by the registered manager to ensure the quality of record keeping was appropriate.