About the service:

• The service’s office is based in Chesham. Care is provided in the surrounding areas including Amersham, Rickmansworth, Chorleywood and Croxley Green.

• The service is part of the Caremark brand; a large group of domiciliary care providers.

• The service provided personal care. People received care as part of a package where care workers visited a set number of times each day. A small number of people had full time ‘live-in’ carers who provided 24-hour care in their house.

• At the time of our inspection, 55 people used the service and there were 30 staff.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People were protected against avoidable harm, abuse, neglect and discrimination. The care they received was very safe.

• People’s risks were assessed and strategies put in place to mitigate the risks.

• People’s likes, preferences and dislikes were assessed and care packages met people’s desired expectations.

• People and relatives provided consistently positive feedback about the care, staff and management. They said the service was caring, timely, effective and well-led.

• People’s care was person-centred. The care was designed to ensure people’s independence was encouraged and maintained.

• People were equal contributors to their care plans and reviews. People, and where needed families, were actively engaged in formulation and changes to care packages.

• The service had a strong and robust management structure. The provider had implemented good systems to ensure they continuously measured the safety of people’s care and quality of the service.

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of “good” in all the key questions we inspected. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was “good”.

• More information is in our full report.

Rating at last inspection:

• This is the first inspection of this service.

Why we inspected:

• This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

• We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.