Blossom Home Care London Borough of Sutton

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence. This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

The registered manager met with people and their relatives to undertake a full assessment prior to providing care. This included gathering information about the person, their preferences and identifying their support needs. The registered manager told us, “We do a meet and greet and speak to them and ask them what they need and how we can provide this.” A relative said, “I was included in the initial assessment and able to explain my [family member’s] needs clearly."

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

Staff undertook regular training to ensure they stayed up to date with best practice guidance. Staff also liaised with specialist healthcare professionals to ensure they received guidance about how to support people safely and in line with current practice, for example, in relation to supporting people with a Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tube.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

The registered manager developed hospital passports with people so that important information was gathered in one place, should a person need to go to hospital. This information was made available in a hard copy at the person’s house should they need to call out a paramedic. This would support the person to experience continuity of care when moving between services.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

Staff supported people to have healthier lives. They provided support to ensure people had access to regular balanced meals that met their needs and took account of their preferences.

Staff did not need to support people using the service to access healthcare services, as this was currently managed by family members. However, staff were able to offer this type of support should it be required.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

Staff asked people what they wanted to achieve from receiving support. This included supporting people to be more confident and in turn, enable them to try new things and support their independence. Many of the people using the service had experienced falls prior to receiving support and they had lost their confidence to mobilise independently. Staff told us about the support provided to one person that enabled them to start walking independently again and build their strength and confidence to do this. This person no longer needed support from the staff as they had become independent enough to care for themselves.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

Staff were aware of and adhered to the Mental Capacity Act (2005). Staff were aware of who had capacity to consent and what elements of their care they were able to understand and consent to. Where people did not have the capacity to consent staff liaised with those that had the legal authorisation to make those decisions on a person’s behalf.