Gemcare South West Plymouth

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 service at its new office location. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to people’s safe care and treatment. Care plans were not always complete or had not always been reviewed, which meant staff did not always have up-to-date information to know how to meet peoples’ needs.

This service scored 54 (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 did not always make sure people’s care and treatment were effective because they did not always check and discuss people’s health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

An initial assessment was carried out before people started receiving care from the service. However, people told us they had not always had a review of their care needs. One person who used the service told us they had asked for a care plan review but had not received a response. Care plans did not contain up-to-date information on people’s needs for staff to follow. One staff member said, “I have found that on working with the service users regularly it's not fully reflective of the care plan.”

The provider did not always plan and deliver people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them.

One person had type 2 diabetes. Staff assisted this person with their food and fluids. Their nutrition and hydration care plan did not contain any information about their diabetes or diet.

The service told us they referred to current good practice and standards. However, care plans did not contain person centred information about people’s nutrition and hydration needs or related health conditions or consider evidence-based good practice.

The provider did not always work well across teams and services to support people.

Staff did not always feel there was effective communication so they could effectively deliver people’s care. Care plans contained details of the people involved in their care. However, as some care plans did not reflect people’s up to date needs, it was difficult to have an accurate understanding. This meant staff may not provide safe or consistent care.

Staff made records of the care they delivered in people’s daily care logs so other staff knew what had happened at each visit and could follow things up when needed.

The provider did not always support people to manage their health and wellbeing, so people could not always maximise their independence, choice and control. People were not always supported to live healthier lives, or where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

One staff member described how they felt one person’s life could be improved. They said, “I’ve phoned the office a couple of times to see if they can do anything to help her do things, but nothing’s been done.”

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They did not always ensure that outcomes were positive andconsistent, or that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

The service did not always communicate with people regarding their needs and wishes. Staff had not always carried out reviews of people’s care and people told us some staff did not support them to achieve positive outcomes.

People told us the provider was not always effective in addressing their concerns such as visit timings and quality of care.

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

Staff had a good knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act and how to apply this in their work. One person said, “They always ask my consent before they do things for me”.