Faulkner House is a domiciliary care service registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. Two people had received support from the service over recent months, one person was no longer receiving it and one person was currently receiving personal care.

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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Staff understood the importance of people consenting to the care they provided and encouraged choice making. They understood the importance of enabling people to make their own decisions wherever possible and seeking the involvement of appropriate people when making decisions to provide care in a person’s best interests if they were not able to give consent themselves.

The person receiving support felt safe and well cared for. They were protected from harm because staff understood the risks they faced and how to reduce these risks. They also knew how to identify and respond to abuse.

Staff were consistent in their knowledge of the person’s needs and spoke with confidence about the care they provided to meet these needs. Care and treatment was delivered in a way that met the person’s needs and promoted their independence and dignity. This included the application of prescribed creams. Staff kept accurate records about the care and support they provided.

There were enough safely recruited staff to ensure the care could be provided. Staff told us told us they felt supported in their roles and had received training that provided them with the necessary knowledge and skills to do their job effectively.

The person had access to health care professionals and was supported to maintain their health by staff. Staff understood the need to share information about changes in people’s health.

The person was positive about the care they received and told us the staff were nice. Staff treated the person and each other with respect and kindness throughout our inspection.

There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and people were encouraged to contribute to the management of the service.

People using the service told us they were happy with the care and support they received and they were positive about the manager and staff team.

Comments from people included; "excellent staff, their visits set me up for the day, they are all so very friendly".

Each person had a detailed plan of care that included people's individual needs and wishes. The plans also included information about the person's physical, social and emotional healthcare needs.

Staff worked with a variety of healthcare professionals including learning disability teams and speech and language therapists in order to provide individual person centred care for people they supported.

Staff were aware of policies and procedures regarding safeguarding people from abuse or harm and knew the correct course of action to take in the event of any concerns.

Staff we spoke to had received appropriate training and were experienced and well supported to carry out their duties.

We saw that quality assurance audits were undertaken annually to ensure the agency was kept under review. Records showed us that families and professionals involved in people's care were consulted. Outcomes from the last audit were positive.

East Boro Housing Trust provides domiciliary care through its ‘Always Help At Hand Service’. The service provides a range of services to adults and older people which includes personnel care, a sitting service, home help, visiting support and home maintenance service across Dorset.

During our visit we spoke with two people who used the service and a relative on the telephone and four members of staff (including the manager). We also spoke with a member of staff from the East Boro Housing Trust Human Resources team. We looked also looked at records which included care files of people who used the service, personnel files of employees and the complaints record.

Comments we received from the people we had contact with were positive. People said that their privacy and dignity were respected. We were told the carers are very reliable, their time keeping is good and happy to leave their relative with them. Another person told us that the cares were ‘Ok in the main’ and that they preferred older cares.’

People also told us that the quality of the service was ‘in the main it was OK’, they were ‘very pleased with the service’ and ‘staff do a reasonable job’ however there did not appear to be a system in place to ensure that the manager assess staff performance, talk’s to people or monitors and reviews the quality of the service provision regularly.