Age UK Northamptonshire Also known as Age Concern Northamptonshire

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.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement.

This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 55 (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. People’s relatives told us that staff were “kind and helpful”. The Registered Manager and staff spoke about people with kindness and warmth. Staff told us they maintain people’s dignity by “ensuring doors are closed, curtains drawn and modesty is protected by covering [people] with a towel whilst assisting with washing/personal care.”

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not always take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. Care plans were not tailored to individual’s needs and risks. People did not have care plans around their communication needs. The Registered Manager told us verbally how people’s conditions impacted on their communication abilities. Staff had also learnt how best to communicate with people through working with them for some time. If new staff were to support people, they would not have the information they needed to ensure people were treated as individuals.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. People’s care plans did not detail how much people were able to do for themselves. As staff didn’t have this information, this presented a risk that they would not be supported to be as independent as possible. Staff told us how they support people in practice to be independent by offering choice. People’s relatives told us the support enables their relative to remain living in their own home.

The provider did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes, concern or distress. Staff knew the people they supported well. They told us how they liked to be supported and how they would involve them in decisions about their care in person. However, their care plans and risk assessments were not reflective of this and contained minimal information. This meant that new staff might not know how to recognise people’s needs or know how to respond in the most appropriate way.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. Not all staff knew who was managing the service, following recent changes to the staffing structure. Staff had received supervision just before the assessment took place but had not received supervision for many months prior to this. There was no robust system in place to ensure staff received the support they required. Staff had mixed views about whether they felt supported. One staff member told us they did feel supported, but another said that there was no back up at the weekend. The Registered Manager told us there was nothing specific in place to support staff’s wellbeing although all staff have open access to office staff. They have previously had one to ones focused on wellbeing, but this has not happened for some time and is yet to be restarted.