This inspection took place on 18 and 19 December 2017 and was announced.

This was the first comprehensive inspection carried out at Compassion Care.

Compassion Care provides care and support to people who wish to remain in their own homes. Services include personal care, meal preparation, hospital discharge and medication support. At the time of our inspection there were 13 people receiving personal care.

The service had a registered manager. 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.

People felt safe. Staff had been provided with safeguarding training to enable them to recognise signs and symptoms of abuse and how to report them. There were risk management plans in place to protect and promote people’s safety. Staffing numbers were appropriate to keep people safe. There were safe recruitment practices in place and these were being followed to ensure staff who were employed were suitable for their role. People’s medicines were managed safely and in line with best practice guidelines.

Systems were in place to ensure that people were protected by the prevention and control of infection. There were arrangements in place for the service to make sure that action was taken and lessons learned when things went wrong, to improve safety across the service

People’s needs and choices were assessed and their care provided in line with best practice that met their diverse needs. Staff received an induction process when they first commenced work at the service and received on-going training to ensure they were able to provide care based on current practice when supporting people.

People received enough to eat and drink and staff gave support when required. People were supported to use and access a wide variety of other services and social care professionals. The staff had a good knowledge of other services available to people and we saw these had been involved with supporting people using the service. People were supported to access health appointments when required, including opticians and doctors, to make sure they received continuing healthcare to meet their needs.

Staff demonstrated their understanding of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 (MCA) and they gained people's consent before providing personal care.

Staff provided care and support in a caring and meaningful way. People were given choices about their day to day routines and about how they wanted their care to be delivered. People’s privacy and dignity was maintained at all times.

People were listened to, their views were acknowledged and acted upon and care and support was delivered in the way that people chose and preferred. Records showed that people and their relatives were involved in the care planning process. There was a complaints procedure in place to enable people to raise complaints about the service.

People, relatives and staff were encouraged to provide feedback about the service and it was used to drive improvement. Staff felt well-supported and received one to one supervision that gave them an opportunity to share ideas, and exchange information. The registered manager was aware of their responsibility to report events that occurred within the service to CQC and external agencies.