Continuum is a domiciliary care service that provides care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection the service provided personal care to four people. When we inspected two people were regularly using the service. The other two people only received care occasionally. Due to the small number of people using the service we were not able to provide a rating for Continuum because of the limited evidence available. We will complete a further inspection in the future to ascertain if we can obtain sufficient evidence to rate the service.

We inspected Continuum on 3 November 2018, the inspection was announced in advance. This was because the service is small and we needed to be sure someone would be available to talk with us. This was the first time the service had been inspected.

The owner of the agency was the 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.

There were no other staff employed at the service at the time of the inspection and the registered manager was providing care with occasional support from a volunteer. The volunteer had the appropriate checks in place to verify they were suitable for the role. Two new employees were in the process of having pre-employment background checks completed. Plans were in place for new employees to complete an induction and initial training before they started to deliver care independently.

People were protected from identified risk. The registered manager knew people well and was aware of the support people needed to help keep them safe. There was a safeguarding policy and people had access to contact details of external agencies if they wanted to raise any concerns. One person was having limited support with medicines and this was documented in their care plan.

Care plans contained clear descriptions of people’s routines where this was important to them. The care plans were relevant to people’s individual circumstances. Copies were made available to people in their homes.

People and their relatives were largely positive about the caring approach of the registered manager. They told us they felt in control of arrangements for their care and support and would be able to ask for any changes if necessary.

The registered manager had a clear vision for the development of the organisation. In our conversations with the registered manager, people and relatives, there was a recurrent theme of the flexible approach to care and support.