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

This service scored 60 (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 confirmed their privacy and dignity were respected when they were supported with personal care and told us they were happy with the care they received. A relative told us staff were friendly, caring, kind and respectful. They said, “Staff are superb and know [person’s name] well”. Another person told us, “Staff are excellent, I like sewing and embroidery, and staff help me with that”.

Staff spoke with care and compassion about the people they supported.

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.

The provider did not always involve people in planning their care. This meant care plans contained minimal information about the person, their wishes and preferences and did not support staff to provide person-centred care. One staff member told us, “[Name] only has a 1-page care plan, I don’t think there’s enough detail in it”. Another staff member told us, “I have never seen care plans”.

Despite omissions in care plan documentation, staff were knowledgeable when it came to people’s basic likes, dislikes, preferences and interests. Feedback from people and relatives was positive.

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.

Whilst people and relatives provided positive feedback about the care provided, people were not consistently involved in planning or reviewing their care, and opportunities to provide feedback about the service were limited. As a result, people did not always have full control or choice over their care and how it was delivered. A relative told us, “I have never been asked to provide feedback about the service”.

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.

People and their relatives told us that staff generally responded quickly to their needs and recognised when people needed urgent help or support in a timely way. One person told us, “I get plenty of care, this is enough” and “I nearly always have the same staff, and they would call me if they were going to be late.” The registered manager told us that all calls were a minimum of 1 hour and stated, “this is the minimum amount of time needed to be able to provide meaningful care”.

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.

The provider had no staff supervision policy in place. A number of staff we spoke to had not received a formal supervision since starting, whilst other staff members indicated that they might have had 1 supervision. There were no records of staff supervision meetings. The registered manager acknowledged, “This is something I need to get better at”. We asked if staff had an opportunity to attend team meetings and were told that that they do and that these meeting are held during a regular social evening at a local community hall. However, when we spoke to staff, the majority told us they had never attended a team meeting or were aware there was one. One staff member told us that they had been to a team meeting, but it was over a year ago. The registered manager was not able to provide any documented minutes from these meetings.

Despite these concerns, we received some positive feedback from the staff we spoke with. They told us they felt well supported, and the registered manager was approachable.