Meridian Health and Social Care - Manchester North

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 – 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. This meant people’s needs were not always met.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to person centred care.

This service scored 50 (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 and they did not always work in partnership with people, to decide how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Care plans did not always reflect people’s preferences. More detail was required to enable staff to provide a responsive, person-centred level of care. Where people’s preferences had been recorded, they had sometimes been ignored in practice. This impacted on the quality of the care people received.

People who needed their medicines at specific times were not prioritised to ensure this happened as agreed in their assessments and people with autism who had specified the importance of punctuality had also not been prioritised. Actions were taken during the assessment to improve this, and one person had since requested more flexibility with the call times and the care plan was updated to reflect this.

Continuity of care had improved as there had been some improvements to the rotas. However, further improvement was needed.

We received positive feedback from two social workers about their interactions with the service.

There were concerns identified by the inspection team that people who had refused their medicines or had cancelled their visits had not had the issue escalated promptly to the relevant healthcare professional. Staff told us, “When a doctor wants medication removed this can take some time to be acted on. They do act but sometimes they take their time. Sometimes it can take 2 days for things to change. If a service user does not explain to another carer the medication has stopped then the carer wouldn’t know because it’s not taken off the system."

People’s individual needs to have information in an accessible way were not always identified, recorded, highlighted and shared.

The majority of people were provided with appropriate information. However, a small number of people with a diagnosis of autism or a learning disability had not had their needs fully assessed. The Accessible Information Standard puts an onus on services to identify, record, flag, share and meet the information and communication needs relating to people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss. Where people had support needs there was an over reliance on family to provide the communication and a lack of person-centred information to guide staff on how to best communicate with people.

People were given a detailed service user welcome pack that provided specific guidance on access to personal data records, confidentiality, safeguarding and how to complain. Staff were trained to understand the importance of maintaining confidentiality.

The provider made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. Staff involved people in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result.

There had been a concerted effort to engage with people and their families in response to the concerns raised about the service in 2024. 72 telephone reviews had taken place between January and April 2025 in an attempt to understand how people felt their care packages were working for them and what changes and improvements were needed. The feedback was being used to improve visit schedules and care plans to ensure they met people’s needs.

There had been 1 formal complaint in 2025. The response was comprehensive and prompt and complied with the complaints policy.

Managers and staff were not always alert to discrimination and inequality that could disadvantage different groups of people when accessing and using services.

It was not clear that the provider understood the inequalities and barriers faced by autistic people and people with a learning disability. Staff had received training, however there was no meaningful goals or outcomes set to support them to progress outside of the core tasks and communication care plans were basic.

People and staff could access support out of hours when they needed it and staff in the office were accessible during office hours.

Staff and leaders did not always actively prioritise people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes. This meant people’s care was not always tailored in response to this.

There was an equality and diversity policy providing guidance on the importance of treating people as individuals. This was further supported by staff training. This helped staff to understand and value difference. However, the provider did not have processes in place to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of people with a learning disability and autistic people in a meaningful way.

We spoke to people about their experience of care. They did not report any barriers to care related to discrimination.

People were 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.

People were given the option during the assessment and in subsequent reviews to discuss this important issue. No one was being supported with end-of-life care currently. Staff received training in end-of-life care when a care package required it.