Mount Joyce Care Ltd Also known as Mount Joyce Care Ltd - Kettering

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

Responsive

Responsive – this means we looked for evidence that the provider met people’s needs.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated Requires Improvement.

Requires improvement: This meant people’s needs were not always met.

This service scored 57 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always make sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices.

People and their relatives spoke well of the regular staff team who supported them, and good working relationships had been formed. One person told us, “We do see the same carers and often the same carers come at lunch and teatime, it is good for (relative) as she recognises them”. However, another person told us, “Sometimes we will get different, new carers and we have quite a lot of different carers, who do not get to know my relative well”.

People’s care plans did not always contain information regarding how to support people with their catheter. This put people at risk of not having their needs met. We fed this back to the management team who told us improvements would be made to people’s care plans. However, staff understood the need to provide person-centred care and demonstrated what this meant to them.

The provider did not always understand the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities.

People told us they had regular care staff supporting them and were mainly happy with the care they received. One person told us, “My relative had to have an operation a few weeks back, and we needed extra support during the night, it was all I needed, but they managed to provide it”.

Whilst staff had received specific training in Dementia, no staff had completed catheter care training, although they were supporting 2 people with catheter care. This was discussed with the management team who assured us this would be completed.

Although some care plans required further information and risk assessments as people were supported by a small team of regular carers this helped to ensure good continuity of care.

The provider did not always supply appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

The management team told us documents such as care plans could be available in different formats such as easy read if required.

There was a service user guidebook and a complaints policy in place. However, these contained conflicting information. For example, complaint response timeframe differed between documents. We reviewed an email thread of a complaint that had not been responded to within either timeframe and was not handled according to policy. We discussed this with the management team who assured us following this assessment they would be reviewing all their policies. The service user guide stated that all care staff would complete the care certificate, but at the time of this assessment none had completed the care certificate, and not all were enrolled. Additionally, the service user guide lacked information such as terms and conditions or charges.

The provider did not always make it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support.

We saw evidence of feedback form from people and their relatives. However, this was not logged in a way that would help to identify concerns or areas of improvement. The management team assured us they would introduce a complaints and compliments folder going forward.

People told us they would feel confident to raise any concerns or complaints. However, one person told us, “The staff have set times, and they do arrive on time and stay how long they are supposed to. If I needed to ring to change the times, I think they would need a bit of persuasion. I asked for a 9pm call to help my relative to bed, as there are lots of TV programmes, we watch that finish then, but they have changed the time to 8.40pm without telling me”.

The provider made sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

People and their relatives told us they had confidence in the management and staff to get support if required. One person told us, “There was a time when I slipped in my armchair and my (relative) rang the agency to see if they could help, they seemed to drop everything and came out to us to help. When I came out of hospital, I asked if the carers could be there and they were able to organise that”

The management team told us they had arrangements in place to ensure care was always available. Staff had access to out of hours support from them as well as emergency services if required. Staff told us calls to the office are answered promptly.

Staff and leaders actively listened to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes.

The provider had appropriate policies in place such as safeguarding, complaints, Equality and Diversity and a lone working policy. However, some policies contained conflicting information and were not consistently followed.

Staff had completed equality, diversity and inclusion training.

People and their relatives mainly told us they felt listened to by the provider and they felt their support was tailored to them, including their wishes and preferences. Overall, feedback received about the service was mainly positive.

People were not always supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end of their life.

There was not an effective system in place to support people plan for important life changes, to ensure people would have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end-of-life stage.

People’s care plans did not show that people had been asked about their end-of-life preferences. We discussed this with the management team who advised they found this difficult to broach and agreed more work was required in this important area.