Frank Care Devon

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 provider involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated Requires Improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to governance.

This service scored 62 (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 always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

All the people and their relatives we spoke with said care staff treated them with kindness and respect.

One care staff member said, “Despite the challenges, I always try to treat clients with dignity, kindness, and respect. However, the working conditions, long hours, and lack of support can make it difficult to consistently provide the level of care that clients deserve”.

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure peoples' care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of peoples' strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

People and their relatives said staff took care when delivering personal care to ensure people’s privacy and dignity was respected. For example, one relative said, “I’m not in the room when they give personal care. They are professional and shut the door”.

The provider promoted peoples' independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff were supporting people to maintain their own skills and abilities, to help people maintain as much independence as possible. Care staff supported people to have dignity in their care. For example, one person said, “I have a power chair to go out in, and I can verbalise what I want to say. I go to the shops and go into town. The carers come with me. I go where I want to go”.

The provider listened to and understood peoples' needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to peoples' needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

The service had advocated for and supported the needs of people when needing support from health services. For example, a person was at high risk of developing a urinary tract infection (UTI) and the service had responded immediately to support the person to give a urine sample which was then taken by a care staff member to the GP surgery. This action was carried out in addition to the contract between commissioners and the service.

The provider did not care about or promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

We heard the provider had not shown care for, or promoted the wellbeing of their care staff, and had not supported and enabled care staff to always deliver person-centred care. Care staff were not supported to do their work effectively and so their morale was low.

There was poor communication between the leadership team and the staff. We heard and read evidence the provider had not communicated respectfully with their care staff and was at times threatening towards them.

Care staff said the provider had also imposed unreasonable rota patterns on them insisting at times on working 7 days a week. Care staff were not given adequate time within rotas to enable arrival at visits on time. This led to distress for people but also for the care staff who could not arrive with the person as planned.

One person said, “The carers are nice are brilliant. They were great and supportive when I was in hospital. They need to improve organisation and retain good carers. 3/10”. (The person gave the service a score of 3 out of 10 for how they supported their care staff).

The registered manager told us they had incentive schemes and organised Christmas parties to support staff wellbeing. The registered manager said they provided staff with supervision.