About the service: Sensitive Care Solutions Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes and flats in the community. It provides a service to younger and older adults. At the time of the inspection 31 people were using the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People told us they felt safe and well care for.

• People were protected against abuse, neglect and discrimination. Staff ensured people’s safety and acted when required to prevent any harm.

• Risks to people were assessed, managed safely and reviewed regularly.

• People were supported with their medicines in a safe way. When required, they were supported to access health care services.

• People’s dietary needs were assessed. Staff prepared meals and drinks where required.

• Systems were in place to ensure staff were recruited safely, trained, supported to carry out their roles and to monitor their performance.

• People’s rights to make their own decisions were respected. Mental capacity assessments were completed as required. Staff sought consent before care was provided.

• People were supported by kind, caring and consistent staff. People’s diverse needs were met.

• People’s care was personalised to their individual needs and were reviewed regularly.

• People’s privacy and dignity was protected, and their independence was promoted.

• People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint. There was a system in place to respond to complaints and advocacy support was available.

• There was an open and a positive culture where the provider, registered manager and staff worked well and communicated effectively.

• People, their relatives and staff had opportunities to give feedback and influence how the service develops.

• The provider had policies and systems in place to monitor the quality of service and action was taken where areas for improvement had been found. Any lessons learnt from incidents were shared with the staff.

• The provider, registered manager and staff team worked well with professionals and external organisations that promoted people’s quality of life.

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of “good” in all key questions.

• More information about our inspection finding is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement (published 27 December 2018).

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating of the last inspection. We checked whether the provider had made improvements to meet the legal requirements and regulations with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Follow up: Going forward we will continue to monitor this service and plan to inspect in line with our re-inspection schedule for those services rated Good.

Sensitive Care Solutions Ltd provides personal care and treatment for people living in their own homes. On the day of the inspection the registered manager informed us that there were a total of 50 people receiving care from the service. This was the first inspection since the service registered on 4 November 2016.

A registered manager was in place. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Staff recruitment checks were not comprehensively in place to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff. Risk assessments were not comprehensively in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare.

People and relatives we spoke with told us they thought the service ensured that people received safe personal care from staff. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.

We saw that medicines had been supplied safely and on time, to protect people’s health needs.

Staff had received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs, though more training was needed on some relevant issues.

Staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choices about how they lived their lives. Staff were aware to ask people’s consent when they provided personal care.

People and relatives we spoke with all told us that staff were friendly, kind, positive and caring. People told us they had been involved in making decisions about how and what personal care was needed to meet any identified needs.

Care plans were individual to the people using the service which helped to ensure that their needs were met.

People and relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns, and they were confident these would be properly followed up.

They were satisfied with how the service was run.

Not all staff felt they had been fully supported in their work by the management of the service.

Policies set out that when a safeguarding incident occurred management needed to take appropriate action by referring to the relevant safeguarding agency. The registered manager was aware these incidents, if they occurred, needed to be reported to us, as legally required.

Management had not carried out comprehensive audits in order to check that the service was meeting people's needs and to ensure people were provided with a quality service.