The Care Bureau- Home Support Service

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 service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 70 (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.

People said staff were kind, considerate and supportive towards them. People and relatives felt staff understood their health conditions, and they said staff saw them as a person. Staff took time to understand each individual, their preferences, triggers, what works and where people needed support. Staff understood the importance of promoting privacy and dignity. One staff member said when they were providing personal care, they asked family members to leave the room. In 1 example, a relative said staff joked about certain things or put things in a jokey way so personal care felt less of a task and made the person feel relaxed and showed empathy for the person.

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

People’s individual care plans were personalised with their input and recorded in detail the right support they needed to maintain their physical and mental wellbeing. Plans included signs of distress, triggers and what interventions staff needed to do to support that person. People’s individual requirements to understand and retain information, or how people communicated, were recorded and shared with staff. In 1 example, a person used a communication book personalised to them so when they did specific facial cues or gestures, staff knew what it meant.

Staff described to us how they supported each person in an individual way. One staff member said, “I have supported them for years, so know them really well.” Staff knew what kept people contented or they could see when people may be coming upset or agitated, and knew how they could try to calm the situation.

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

Staff understood their role and those others who were involved, such as family members in supporting the person to be as independent as possible. One person told us how staff were helping them buy furniture and things for their own home. The person was grateful for the help and said they were involved in the choice of what they wanted.

Care plans described what aspects of their individual care people could do for themselves, where they needed supervision or prompting and when staff needed to provide support. A person said they needed staff to prompt them for a shower, and was encouraged by staff to achieve this, without staff taking over. Everyone felt involved, listened to and their choices respected. Where people lacked some or all capacity to consent, people were still involved to make day to day choices were practicable, through their own individual communication style.

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

A relative felt staff were responsive to people’s needs and when those needs changed. This relative said their family member had a rare illness that immediately required the person to go to hospital, when they became ill. The relative said staff knew what to do and on 1 occasion, staff supported them to go to the hospital with their poorly relative. This relative said they were pleased staff helped them as they would have been unable to cope on their own. People and relatives said if they needed to change their plans, such as where they wanted to go or to attend planned appointments, this was supported. One person said they usually decided what they wanted to do when staff supported them. In 1 example, a person said they bought furniture items and staff helped put them together.

The provider did not always care about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Systems to ensure staff continued to maintain their wellbeing did not always work effectively. This had potential to impact on people and staff’s work life balance. Staff shared information that their requests for time off or for planned time away from work were not always responded to, or remembered, despite notice being provided. Staff told us they chose to work on pre-arranged days off so the person receiving care they supported was not left without care, because staff couldn’t be found last minute. Staff told us that the provider’s care staff who worked for the other provider’s service located within the same office, may have different terms and conditions and pay. This caused staff to feel less valued. The registered manager confirmed there were differences.