About the service: Eureka Care Services Limited, is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. When we inspected they were providing the regulated activity, personal care, to 10 people in and around the Hertfordshire and Broxbourne areas.

What life is like for people using this service: People did not always receive the care and support they needed at the times agreed. Most staff did not have their own transport and relied on public transport which was not always reliable and resulted in some calls being late. Comments included, “They [staff] are trying to catch up when they are late” and “The logistics in getting staff to visits is posing a big problem at the moment”. Staff told us they had the time to complete their calls but there was not always time to travel between clients.

The service did not follow its own recruitment policy. Some files did not have the necessary information required by regulation. One application form was not on the staff file. Two records did not include any employment gaps. Two records did not include interview notes. This meant the fitness of the person to be employed could not be verified.

There were three staff vacancies being advertised at the time of the inspection. The registered provider/manager was working closely with the staff team to support them in carrying out visits. The current vacancies were impacting on the response times to some calls due to the geographical area staff were covering.

There were quality monitoring systems in place as well as auditing procedures. However, they were not effective as they had not addressed the issues we found during the inspection.

People told us they felt well cared for by staff who treated them with respect and dignity and encouraged them to maintain relationships and keep their independence for as long as possible.

Staff liaised with other health care professionals to ensure people's safety and meet their health needs.

More information is in the detailed findings below.

We identified two breaches of the Health and Social Care Act (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 around recruitment practices and governance. Details of action we have asked the provider to take can be found at the end of this report.

Rating at last inspection: Eureka Care Services Limited has not been rated at this location. This is the first rating of this service.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection. At this inspection we rated the service Requires Improvement.

Follow up: We will carry out a further focused inspection, in line with our inspection programme, to check improvements have been made to ensure the service is meeting the regulations. We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.