Alcedo Care Central and East Lancashire

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people felt well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 65 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity.

The service did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. However, they did take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

People and their relatives feedback about being treated as individuals was mixed. Whilst one person said, “I never feel rushed, and I feel they treat me like an individual.” A relative told us, “The lack of follow-up on a very simple request for her comfort does make me feel that they aren’t treating her as an individual with her own preferences.” Staff told us how they get to know new people and how they are updated when people’s needs change. One staff member told us. "I read the care plan. The manager and nurses work together and keep us updated. We get messages too if things change."

Records we observed showed how the service treated people as individuals considering things such as people’s culture. We did see examples of people’s communication needs recorded in their care plan. No feedback from professionals could be gained in this area.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People felt staff supported them to be independent where possible. One person told us, “I feel they help me live as independently as possible, and I get to make my own everyday choices. They will always make time for me and support me kindly, without making me feel like a burden.” Staff told us how they support people to be as independent as possible. One staff member said, “If they can do things for themselves, we encourage it and if they can't, we talk them through what we are doing."

Depending on the care package commissioned, support with activities varied. We were told about examples where complex care was being provided, and staff were supporting the person to access the community. People were involved (where they wanted to be) in things such as charity walks and fundraising for the community.

People felt the service did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes.

People and their relatives provided mixed feedback about the service meeting people’s immediate needs. Some relatives felt more could be done to support their loved ones’ immediate needs. A staff member told us how they look out for signs of pain if peoples are non-verbal. One staff member told us, "We watch out for body language, them flinching and things like that."

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff.

Staff told us they were generally treated well. One staff member said, "Yes (I am treated equally and fairly). If I have any issues, there is always someone to talk to." Policies were in place to support staff wellbeing. Staff were able to raise concerns, should they have any, through various channels, as the registered manager had an open-door policy and staff had regular support in the form of 1-1s. Most calls had travel time allocated between them, but some improvement could be made in this area. The registered manager was working on making improvements.