A TEAM of caregivers and staff at a Swindon home care company celebrated receiving top marks after impressing CQC inspectors.

Home Instead Senior Care Swindon received an Outstanding rating in three of the report's five areas - caring, well-led, and responsive - which makes it the first home care company in Swindon to achieve this feat. The company received a Good rating in the other two categories (safe and effective).

Inspectors found "overwhelming evidence that people using the service received exceptional care from staff who were exceedingly caring and passionate about providing a high quality service".

They received positive feedback about the care provided by the company at clients' homes.

One client said: "My caregiver helps me with anything that is causing me stress like filling in a form or hospital visits. She is more than a caregiver she is a lifeline for me.”

A relative said: "I think care is the wrong word, it is more than that. It is looking after someone with the same love and genuine desire to do their best that a relative would give.”

Another client living with a particular condition wrote a letter to the Home Instead management to praise her caregiver as "an exceptional person, there is nothing she wouldn’t do for me" after the caregiver took the client to have a manicure which was carried out by a professional who had the same condition.

General manger Tracey Morley said: "We are so delighted to have achieved an outstanding rating from the CQC. Our clients are the most important people in the world to us and we will continue strive to provide the best service we possibly can.

“We are 100 per cent committed to providing the highest possible care. And for us that means care that is built around each of our client’s individual needs and the wishes of their families.”

Many staff have become dementia friends champions and hold dementia friends sessions which help inform people about dementia, as well as holding activities and workshops in the area.

The team sponsors free dementia awareness sessions, free dementia friendly cinema screenings and a monthly dementia friendly café, all of which, the inspectors said, provides people with the chance to "share experiences, have contact with other people and give relatives a break from their caring duties".

The Swindon company is one branch of a national network of 200 offices.