This inspection took place on 7 July 2016 and was announced. This meant we gave the provider 48 hours' notice of our visit because we wanted to be sure someone in the office would be in and available to speak with us.

Carlton House provides personal care to people living in their own homes in Leicester and Leicestershire. Care is provided to people with a range of needs, including physical disabilities and complex health conditions. 26 people were using the regulated service at the time of our inspection.

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 and their relatives told us that the service provided to them was safe. Staff had been provided with the knowledge to protect people from harm and knew what actions to take in line with safeguarding procedures. Potential risks to people had been assessed, such as risks associated with people's health conditions and their living environment. Risk assessments recorded the measures in place to manage the potential risks.

Staff had undergone a robust recruitment process before they worked with people who use care services. Staff had received induction and training that equipped them to support people safely. All staff were supported through unannounced spot checks, supervisions and observations of working practices.

People were prompted to take their medication where their plan of care had identified that the person required support from staff. We found people's medicines were managed safely.

People made decisions about their care and support needs. The registered provider followed the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). Care staff sought consent before they helped people and respected people's choices and decisions.

People's care plans reflected the support they required including support to meet their health and nutritional needs. This helped to ensure people received effective care which recognised and promoted their independence.

People did not always receive consistency in care from all staff and care was not always provided in a timely way. People told us of the impact that frequent late calls had on their care and well-being. The provider was aware of people's concerns and had already begun to make improvements to staff timekeeping and consistency in care staff.

People's care plans were person centred, detailed and written in a way that described their individual care, treatment and support needs in detail. These were regularly evaluated and updated. People using the service and those who were important to them were actively involved in deciding how they wanted their care, treatment and support to be delivered.

People and their relatives were confident to make a complaint or express concerns to the registered provider. The provider's complaints procedure required updating to include relevant internal and external contact details to support people to purse their complaint.

There were systems in place to enable staff to feedback on people's needs and support people and their relatives to share their views on the care they received. We found the registered provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and drive the improvement and development of the service. People and staff told us and records confirmed that regular home visits were carried out by the management team who checked on their well-being and monitored the care provided by staff.