Respectful Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. The registered provider is GMC Care Limited. Not everyone using the service receives regulated activity. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’. This means help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

The inspection took place on 11 July 2018. The registered provider was given short notice of the visit to the office, in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies. This was the first inspection of the service, which was registered with CQC, in August 2017.

At the time of our inspection there were 13 people being supported that were receiving personal care.

The service was managed by the 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.

The service was rated good.

Systems and process to monitor the service needed further development and embedding into practice.

Everyone we spoke with, without exception, said they were very happy about the service being provided. They told us that the service was meeting people’s needs and everyone felt that support was delivered in a safe way. Staff told us they really enjoyed working for the agency and had received plenty of support, through training, supervisions and coaching.

The recruitment processes were robust, however, we found some shortfalls.

We saw that people and their relatives had been consulted with about the quality of the service and improvements had been made following feedback.

People were receiving their medicines when they needed them by trained staff. We found that there were some medicine recording issues, that had not been identified by the registered manager audit system.

There was a procedure in place to ensure any safeguarding concerns were addressed and reported. Staff had good knowledge of how to spot the signs of abuse and what action to take. People we spoke with felt safe using the service.

People told us the registered manager and staff were very caring, kind and compassionate.

People or their relatives had been involved in writing their own care plans, which ensured they were receiving person driven care. People told us their choices were respected and they were not restricted in any way.

People and their relatives were knowledgeable of their right to make a complaint. They all felt the service would act accordingly to address them.

The service supported people to prepare and make meals. Staff told us that meal choice was very much down to the individual but they would encourage people to be as independent as possible, helping them to do things rather than doing things for them.

People who required the involvement of health care professionals were assisted to obtain this support, where they needed it.