- Homecare service
Bluezone Care Ltd
Report from 16 May 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 10 to 23 June 2025. This was our first inspection of the service, covering of all the 5 key questions. This assessment was prompted by a review of the information we held about the service. The service is a care at home service providing support to older people living in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service were receiving the regulated activity of personal care. Personal care is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. At the time of our inspection, they were providing personal care services to 31 people. The registered manager and leaders had a good understanding of the day-to-day challenges of running a service and ensured they were a visible presence for both people and staff. People and staff gave us positive feedback about the leadership team, telling us they were supportive and responsive. The service had experienced challenges around ensuring the consistency of care call times and communication to people around changes to planned care. The registered manager had listened to people’s feedback and was taking action to address the issues raised. The service was a small domiciliary care agency, who had been successful in providing care in local and at times hard to reach rural areas. The registered manager had made considered plans around how to build the size of the service without compromising quality, safety and the person-centred ethos. They had recognised where the service needed to make changes to their governance systems to meet the ongoing challenges of supporting a greater number of people. These changes were ongoing at the time of our inspection.
People's experience of this service
We spoke to 17 people and relatives via telephone calls, to gain feedback about their experiences of receiving care from the provider. Overall, people were happy with the quality of care. They told us they felt safe receiving care and told us staff were competent and well trained. Comments included, “Staff respect [my relative] and that makes her feel safe. They (staff) are really nice with her.” Relatives told us staff were responsive to their family members needs and took appropriate action to keep them safe. One relative told us, “[My relative] once fell out of bed during the night. Staff found him (at planned morning call) and called the ambulance and then called me. He now has an emergency button which he refused to have before." We received mixed feedback around the consistency of care call times and communication around changes. Some people told us care was consistent and took place at agreed times, “We are very happy with the care, [My relative] has them (staff) 3 times a day. They always get there on time.” However, other people said timings could be inconsistent and they were not always informed about changes in care call time or staff member, “I think the timekeeping needs to be tightened up, but other than that I’m generally happy” and, “I do think that the communication could be improved. The timekeeping is all over the place.” People told us they had experienced minor issues navigating language barriers and cultural differences with staff. For example, knowledge around cooking and meal preparation. However, they told us staff were caring, well intentioned and they had formed good relationships with them. Relatives’ comments included, “[My relative] really likes them (staff) and says they are kind and caring. We have no complaints at all” and, “We genuinely could not do without them (staff)." People told us staff treated them with dignity, respect and always obtained their consent for care. They said staff respected their choices, which promoted their independence. Comments included, “Staff always call me Mr and are always polite, I can’t fault them” and, “When it comes to food and drink I have told them (staff) to give my relative a choice and they always do.” People told us the provider’s senior staff were responsive if they had ever had to raise issues or concerns. One person told us, “I go straight to the manager (if I have an issue). They deal with complaints well.”