Farecare Gloucestershire Limited

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 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 service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We received positive feedback from people about respect and dignity. One person told us, “They [staff] treat me with dignity and respect and respect my routine.” A relative told us “A lot of the [staff] have become friends with my [relative] after a while, [staff] are always very kind. They treat my [relative] with the upmost respect.” Staff told us “I treat [people] the way I want to be treated. I always put a towel over [people] when giving personal care to maintain dignity. For example, one day I was supporting someone with a wash and the DN came in to give their injection, so I put a towel over them while the nurse was in the room.” Another staff member told us, “We shut curtains, put towels over [people], we have a laugh, try some music and have a sing along. We get to know the people we care for really well.” However, systems to monitor how staff delivered kind and compassionate care with dignity required improvement. Daily notes completed by staff did not contain details on how the person’s mood was or included any examples of interaction with staff and focussed mainly on the care tasks and what people had to eat and drink. Daily notes completed by staff recorded people were “all well” and “all care tasks completed”. This was not reflective of the positive daily interactions between people and staff.

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.

People gave positive feedback about how staff knew them well and how they liked their care to be delivered. One person told us, “The carers meet my needs, and I love them all as they are so kind to me, they really are lovely.” Staff told us, “I have a good relationship with [person] and I recognise when they are struggling. I'm really proud of what they are achieving and how [person] talks about things.” We found inconsistencies recorded in people’s care plans around their aspirations. For example, 1 person stated they wanted to be independent with medicine management, while other information within their care plan stated they needed full assistance with medicine management. Staff did not have clear guidance and risked treating the person as if they could not make decisions around their medicine management. The manager and senior staff were not aware of the discrepancies we found but told us they would be conducting a full review of all care records to ensure they were consistent, and recorded people’s wishes. The manager told us, “I have tried to make sure I understand people’s care needs and what they want, but we’ve had a lot of upheaval since taking over and we haven’t always gotten things right in terms of our record keeping. We are committed to working with CQC and improving in this area.”

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.Staff were positive about how they supported people to be independent and have choice and control. One staff member told us, “We offer choices and ask them what they would like to do – always give them a choice. Independence is key and try to put this first, if a person needs a bit of help, we encourage and then support where people can't.” Care staff provided some social calls and supported people to access the community. One staff member told us, “We put a lot of social visits in with people so we can spend time with them.” However, we found these were not recorded and therefore did not reflect the amount of work staff were putting in. This meant we could not corroborate the feedback we received from staff.

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff, and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.Staff were positive about how they felt towards the management team. One staff member told us, “I was really nervous about the changes but thought I need to give it a chance. It was all over the place but now it feels ok, and I feel more settled and not so anxious. We lost a lot of carers and didn't have much support but now I feel I can go to management with every concern I have.” The manager told us staff were paid to attend staff meetings, and there was an employee of the month initiative.

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff, and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.Staff were positive about how they felt towards the management team. One staff member told us, “I was really nervous about the changes but thought I need to give it a chance. It was all over the place but now it feels ok, and I feel more settled and not so anxious. We lost a lot of carers and didn't have much support but now I feel I can go to management with every concern I have.” The manager told us staff were paid to attend staff meetings, and there was an employee of the month initiative.