Babysteps

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

This means we looked for evidence that the service 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 Inadequate. This meant people were not treated with compassion, and there were breaches of dignity. The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to people’s safe care and treatment, for example, the responsible individual did not treat people as individuals or respond to immediate needs.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

We scored the service as 1. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respectand involved as partners in their care.

We observed the responsible individual did not support women in understanding and managing their care and did not understand the individual needs of women, including their personal, cultural, social, and religious needs. The environment did not have equipment to offer women privacy and dignity, for example, a screen or curtain to shield women whilst getting themselves prepared for their scan.

The responsible individual did not always direct women to other services when appropriate and, if required, supported them to access those services.

We could not be assured the responsible individual ensured the confidentiality of information about customers. We saw evidence of a third-party social communication method being used to send confidential information.

However, on the day of inspection, we observed women being treated with kindness.

We scored the service as 1. The evidence showed significant shortfalls. The service did not treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support, and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The service did not take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The responsible individual did not ensure women could obtain information on treatments, local services, consumer rights, or how to complain. We did not observe any demonstrable complaints pathway or complaints log. There was no clear process used to learn from complaints.

Information was not available in accessible formats, and the service could not demonstrate they could make any adjustments for women who had specific needs, for example, communication, easy read, and in different languages. The responsible individual stated they would expect people to know exactly what they were coming for, and should there be a deviation from this, they would expect someone to accompany the person.

We scored the service as 1. The evidence showed significant shortfalls. The service did not promote people’s independence, so people did not know their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment, and wellbeing.

No screening took place even when customers presented at the front door, no forms were completed, risks discussed, or information exchanged. This meant there was no information supplied to customers regarding services provided to inform them of their rights or give choice and control.

Women were not supported in understanding their rights by using different ways to communicate. Their understanding was not reviewed throughout their care and treatment to promote independence, choice, or control.

We scored the service as 1. The evidence showed significant shortfalls. The service did not listen to or understand people’s needs, views, and wishes. The responsible individual did not respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern, or distress.

The service did not undertake comprehensive assessments to discern immediate needs.

We observed that the responsible individual had not always immediately escalated concerns and dealt with any specific risk issues, such as referring to other services, which suggested people were not supported to access the appropriate care for their situation. An example of this was observed on the day of inspection, when the responsible individual acknowledged that they had concerns regarding a scan, and did not signpost the woman to more appropriate services to support them with this until after the weekend.

Chaperoning arrangements had not been considered by the responsible individual, and they felt that it was appropriate for a chaperone to be a family member or friend. Family and friends do not qualify as formal chaperones because they are not impartial, though customers have a right to have them present in addition to a formal chaperone, should someone feel vulnerable. Arrangements were not in place to support vulnerable women who request a formal chaperone on the day of their scan.

We did not look at Workforce wellbeing and enablement during this assessment. There is no previous rating for the Caring key question so we cannot yet publish a score for this area.