Our inspection took place on 1 August 2017 and was announced.

Forever Homecare is a small, family-run service located in the central business district of Slough, Berkshire. The service provides care at home to older and younger adults in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. Only personal care is regulated by us, and our inspection has excluded evidence about other support types offered by the service. At the time of our inspection, the service provided care to about 31 people and this was growing. There were approximately 15 staff with more being recruited to increase the capacity of the service to cater for more care packages.

The service must have 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager.

This is our first inspection of the service since their change in registration with us. The service changed their location since our last inspection.

We found people were protected against abuse or neglect. Staff attended training that ensured their knowledge of safeguarding people was up-to-date. People had personalised risk assessments tailored to their support requirements. We saw sufficient staff were deployed to provide people’s support. We made a recommendation about the service’s medicines policy.

Staff received appropriate induction, training, supervision and support from the service’s management. This ensured their knowledge, skills and experience were appropriate for their caring roles. We saw people’s consent was obtained before care packages commenced. The service needed to ensure that where consent was given by another party (such as a relative with a power of attorney ) that appropriate checks of documentation were completed and stored. People were sometimes supported with their nutrition and hydration. Staff respected people’s choices for meals and enabled them to be as independent as possible in the preparation of food and drinks.

Staff at Forever Homecare were caring. The service had received many compliments about the care received. Responses to surveys we carried out and people and relative’s feedback demonstrated that staff were kind and compassionate. The service had appropriately considered communication barriers in the provision of personal care and implemented strategies to ensure people and their relatives could have effective conversations with staff.

People had appropriate support plans in place which were regularly reviewed. We found the plans contained detailed information relevant to each person who uses the service. There was an appropriate complaints system in place and the management team handled any concerns promptly.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The service was well-led. There was a positive workplace culture and staff felt that management listened to what they had to say. We saw there were a variety of audits and checks completed by the management to measure the safety and quality of care. The service had developed their own improvement plan and worked continually towards improving their support to people and those important to them.