Wiltshire Base

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 good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 75 (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.

Feedback about the staff from people and relatives was positive. People had a team of care staff who consistently supported people with their care. The provider had systems to ensure they were in contact with people and relatives regularly. The provider said, they were currently making weekly phone calls to check people were happy with their care and support and their care worker. The provider said they also checked people’s care records to see how staff were recording care visits. This helped them make sure staff were being respectful and compassionate about people’s individual circumstances.

If people wanted a specific gender of care worker this was recognised and implemented.

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.

The provider gathered information about people’s individual needs during the assessment process. This included life history information and people’s likes, dislikes and wishes. Collecting life history information helps staff to understand people’s needs if people develop conditions such as dementia.

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

People’s care records were written to encourage staff to promote people’s independence as much as possible. Leaders told us they were mindful of people living in isolation and supported people to access services such as befriending. This type of service can help people have contact with trained volunteers to reduce risks of loneliness and isolation. The service also completed a weekly telephone call to people to check on wellbeing.

The provider shared an example of how they had supported a person to visit a relative in another service. The person had faced some barriers during their visit. With consent from the person the provider took action to call the service and share the person’s experiences. This helped the person have more positive visits with their relative.

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.

Staff had been provided with training on supporting people who may be experiencing distress. The provider told us staff could also call the office to seek additional support from leaders if they were faced with situations where people were distressed and they needed help. There were team leaders employed who could respond and support staff with guidance or hands on care and support.

The provider matched staff to people when starting people’s care packages. This helped to make sure people had care workers with the same interests, or similar personalities. This also provided people with a continuity of care where staff got to know people really well. This knowledge helped staff anticipate any changes of needs or early signs of ill health. This information was shared with the office staff who could take any preventative or responsive action such as calling healthcare professionals.

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Various processes were available to staff for their wellbeing. The provider employed an external organisation to provide staff with various services to help with their wellbeing. For example, there was free counselling available to staff if they needed this. This resource was for any issue staff faced, not just work. The provider said they could support staff by scheduling work around any childcare if possible.

The provider told us staff morale was very important for them. They had started some schemes to maintain positive staff morale. For example, they had started an employee reward scheme. Care workers were nominated and rewarded with a small monetary voucher. The registered manager said they made sure staff took their annual leave and often shared positive feedback from people and families with staff when praise had been given.