GRACE Community Care has received a ‘good’ rating from Care Quality Commission following an inspection into the domiciliary care agency.

The service provides personal care to people living in their own houses in the community.

It received a ‘good’ rating in the fields of safety, effectiveness, how caring the service is and how responsive it is but it ‘requires improvement’ in leadership.

The inspector said: “There was a clear safeguarding procedure in place.

“This outlined the types of abuse that could occur and staff had the skills to recognise any concerns that may arise.”

“No new staff had been recruited to the service since our last visit. In the event of new staff being recruited, a structured induction process was in place.

“This enabled new staff to become familiar with their role.

“Prior to using the service, assessment information was gained by the registered provider outlining the main needs and areas of support for each person.”

The report also discusses how people who used the service felt that they were always treated with dignity and respect by the staff.

Leadership within the service does need to improve.

The inspector said: “The scale of the agency meant that the registered provider was directly providing support to people who used the service and working with the other staff member where necessary.

“As a result, the registered provider was able to gain information about the quality of the support from people but this had not always been recorded.

“Supervision spot-checks had not been recorded and not all care plan reviews had been undertaken within the registered provider's own timescale.

“The lack of recording in quality checks meant that the registered provider could not directly evidence that effective auditing was in place.”