6 December 2013
During a routine inspection
People we spoke to also confirmed that care staff provided a flexible, consistent and reliable service for them. They told us that if they had differing needs on any day their care worker usually did their best to support them as they had requested. One relative told us: "They will even do things that are extra to the care which was planned. Sometimes they notice that my mother has run out of milk and they pop up the road to get her some". The care plans that we saw provided detailed information about the relevant social and medical history of the service users.
We saw evidence that the provider worked in partnership with social services teams and health teams. For some people the provider was working with social services to enable people to have individual budgets in order that they could purchase care directly from the provider. Some people had opted for this in order that they could remain with the provider rather than the local social services transfer them to an alternative provider.
People using the services were protected from abuse by a range of methods including the agency's policy on safeguarding vulnerable adults; the principles of care that the manager enforces and by the regular and appropriate training of care workers. We saw evidence of written policies and training certificates during the inspection.
Forms of support to care staff included an induction period for all new care workers and direct observation of care workers providing actual care to a person that they regularly worked with.
The manager told us that there was a feedback form for people who use the service to complete so that the provider could improve the quality of care that they provided for people. We saw that a quality survey had been carried out in August 2013 and a separate survey in January 2013. We saw that an external audit of the service had been carried out in November 2013. The results of the surveys were very positive, with the majority of people reporting "Good" or "very Good" for each of the questions.