Care you can feel confident in
Inviting someone into your home to provide care requires trust. We take that responsibility seriously.
At Combe Home Care, quality and safety are part of everything we do — from the people we recruit and the training they receive, to the way care is planned, recorded, monitored and reviewed.
Our aim is simple: to provide safe, compassionate and person-centred care while treating every person we support with dignity, respect and kindness.
Good care isn’t just about what happens during a visit. It’s about making sure the right systems, people and support are in place behind every visit too.
How we maintain quality and safety
Carefully recruited people
We look for people who share our values of kindness, reliability and respect. Our recruitment process includes face-to-face interviews, appropriate references and DBS checks before new carers begin providing care.
Training & ongoing support
Training doesn’t stop when someone joins us. Our team receives ongoing training, supervision and support across areas including safeguarding, medication, moving and handling, dementia awareness and first aid.
Care that’s planned and monitored
Every person’s care is individual. Care plans help our team understand someone’s needs, routines, preferences and the support they require, while regular monitoring helps us make sure care continues to meet their needs.
Digital care records with Birdie
Good communication and accurate, up-to-date information are an important part of providing safe care.
At Combe Home Care, we use Birdie, a digital care management system that allows our carers to record information about care visits securely and in real time.
Care records and important information are available to our management team, helping us monitor the care being provided and identify anything that may need attention or follow-up.
Families can also be given access to appropriate information through Birdie, helping them stay connected and reassured about the care their loved one is receiving.
Using digital care records also supports our wider quality and governance processes, giving us better oversight of the service and helping us continually review the care we provide.
Monitoring Quality
Quality isn’t something we check once — it’s something we continually monitor, review and improve.
Our management team remains closely involved in the care we provide. Information recorded through Birdie, together with feedback from the people we support, their families and our care team, helps us understand how well care is working and where anything may need attention.
We use a range of checks and reviews as part of our quality and governance processes. These include care plan reviews, medication audits, staff supervisions and spot checks, reviews with service users and families, and monitoring feedback, compliments and complaints.
Birdie also gives our management team greater oversight of care delivery, helping us review records, monitor important information and identify issues that may require follow-up.
Most importantly, if something isn’t right, we want to know about it. We encourage service users, families and our staff to raise concerns, ask questions or give feedback so that we can respond appropriately and continue improving the care we provide.
Listening to the people we support
The people receiving our care — and the people closest to them — are an important part of helping us understand how well we’re doing.
We encourage service users and their families to talk to us about their care, whether that’s something they’re particularly happy with, something they’d like to change, or simply a question they’d like answered.
Regular reviews give us an opportunity to check that care continues to meet someone’s needs and preferences. But people don’t have to wait for a formal review — we want them to feel comfortable talking to us at any time.
Feedback, compliments and concerns are taken seriously and form part of the way we monitor and improve our service.
Good care should never feel like something that’s simply done to you. We believe the people we support should have a voice in the care they receive.
What people say about our care
“I really appreciated how helpful she was in updating me as to the patient’s level of functioning and wellbeing. She gave me very thoughtful and insightful information.”
Dr Julia Saunders
Associate Specialist Healthcare for Older People
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Your caring team are all so lovely and we really do enjoy seeing them.”
Feedback received by Combe Home Care
“She knew when to help and when to simply watch. The result is that I’m feeling normal and independent.”
Service user feedback
Safeguarding the people we support
Keeping people safe is one of our most important responsibilities.
Everyone has the right to live safely and to be treated with dignity and respect. Our team is trained to recognise and respond to concerns about a person’s safety or wellbeing, and safeguarding forms part of our ongoing staff training and supervision.
Our carers are encouraged to speak up whenever something doesn’t seem right. Concerns are reported to our management team so they can be considered promptly and, where appropriate, we work with families, health professionals, social care professionals and other agencies to help protect the person we support.
Safeguarding isn’t simply a policy or a training course — it’s about creating a culture where people feel confident to notice, question and speak up.
Regulated by the Care Quality Commission
Combe Home Care is registered with and regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
The CQC monitors care services to make sure they meet the required standards of quality and safety.
At our most recent published inspection, Combe Home Care was rated Good overall. The inspection looked at the quality and safety of our service, including people’s experiences of the care they received.
The CQC reported that people and their relatives were complimentary about the care and support they received, that people’s dignity and privacy were respected, and that systems were in place to monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service.
We don’t see regulation as something to prepare for only when an inspection takes place. Maintaining safe, effective and well-managed care is part of the way we work every day.
Raising a concern or making a complaint
We want people to feel comfortable telling us when something isn’t right.
If you or a family member has a concern about the care we provide, we encourage you to speak to us. Wherever possible, we will listen, look into the concern and work with you to resolve it.
We also have a formal complaints procedure for anyone who wishes to make a complaint. Complaints are taken seriously and are used as an opportunity to learn and improve our service.
Raising a concern or making a complaint will never affect the care or support someone receives from us.
If someone feels their concern has not been resolved, they can also contact the appropriate external organisations for further advice.
Have a question about our care?
Choosing care is an important decision, and it’s completely understandable to have questions.
Whether you’d like to know more about how we keep people safe, how we plan and monitor care, or simply want to talk about the support you or a family member might need, we’re happy to have an informal conversation.
There’s no obligation — sometimes the best place to start is simply having a chat.
