This announced inspection was carried out on 20 November 2018 by an adult social care inspector. We gave the registered manager 24-hours’ notice of our inspection. This is because we needed to make sure that someone would be available to assist us with our inspection.

Happy Valley Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to adults living within their own homes. The service is registered to support older people, people with learning disabilities, sensory impairments and physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection the service was providing support to 38 people and employed 15 staff.

This was our first inspection of the service since it registered with us in March 2017.

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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us they felt safe with the service they received. One person said, “Yes I do feel safe, they’re very good to me.”

The service had systems in place to protect people from abuse. Staff had received training on this topic and demonstrated a good understanding of this when we spoke with them. They were able to demonstrate the actions they would take in the event of a person being at risk of harm. Records showed that any concerns were promptly and effectively managed by the registered manager.

Overall, the risks associated with delivering people’s care were effectively assessed and managed.

People were safely and effectively supported with their medication. Medication was administered and recorded accurately and people told us they received their medicines on time and with the amount of support they needed. Staff responsible for the administration of medicines received training to ensure they had the necessary skills and knowledge and their competency in this area was regularly assessed by senior staff.

The service had enough staff to meet people’s needs. Both the records we reviewed and the feedback we received from staff and people supported showed that staff could complete all of their calls as scheduled and they stayed with people for the full length of time or as long as they were needed.

We saw that the service had robust business continuity and emergency plans in place to ensure people’s care and support could be maintained.

The Care Quality Commission is required by law to monitor the operation of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and to report on what we find. We found that the service was working within the principles of the MCA. We saw that the service had training, policies and guidance available for staff in relation to the MCA. This meant they were working within the law to support people who may lack capacity to make their own decisions.

People’s needs were effectively assessed before they were supported by the service.

We saw that all new staff completed a thorough induction process at the start of their employment and staff received regular training relevant to their roles. The staff we spoke with gave positive feedback about training provided by the service. We also saw that staff were supported with regular supervision meetings with senior staff.

People told us the staff were kind and caring and we found that people had developed positive and friendly relationships with regular carers.

Staff treated people with dignity and respect and encouraged them to be as independent as possible. People commented, “The staff treat me as a person, with dignity and respect, they’re very caring” and “[The staff] offer and ask, they don’t just do. Like getting dressed, they let me do as much as I can and then help me when I need them to.”

The care plans we reviewed were person-centred and gave staff the information that they needed to