Alison House

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 service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

The last rating for this key question was good. At this assessment the rating has remained good.

This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

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.

Family members praised the quality of the service. A relative told us “Staff know [person] very well. They know how to communicate with [them]. Staff are kind and caring.” Another family member said “They are fantastic with [person]. The staff are great with [them]. They are kind, and patient. They understand what [person] wants.” Relatives also told us the staff supported them as well as the people being cared for.

Talking with staff it was clear that they showed great kindness to people. They treated people with dignity and respect. The provider also placed great emphasis on this. This was confirmed in the annual survey of people and their family views.

Health and social care professionals praised the kindness and caring nature of staff at the service. We were told, “Staff have always been very kind.”

People’s cultural, religious and lifestyle choices were respected and met.

Care and support plans identified specific cultural or religious needs, and staff made culturally appropriate meals.

We saw staff adapting their approach with different people to match people’s emotional state and interests.

As the people using the service had severe disabilities and limited verbal communication, staff worked hard to promote choice, independence and control, within the limited sphere they could.

If people did not want support with personal care at a specific time, the staff would return to offer again. Staff encouraged and supported people to learn and maintain independent living skills. For example, supporting some individuals to dress themselves or brush their own teeth.

Staff understood people’s different abilities to do tasks and worked to promote and improve choices and independence.

Staff responded to people’s immediate needs.

We saw staff responding to people’s individual needs, offering person-centred support and advice.

Staff told us they found the provider to be proactive in encouraging them to develop their careers. All support staff are supported to gain the Care Certificate. There is an internal ‘aspiring and new leaders’ programme with aligned external qualifications. The provider supported assistant team managers to access the Skills for Care Managing up Programme. This is a scheme that supports under represented groups into management posts as well as promoting the Registered Managers networks.

Staff told us they felt supported. The provider held ‘colleague of the month’ awards which were peer nominated. Winners were selected by the executive team and won an award in the provider’s annual staff awards. There was a staff forum, which enabled staff views to be fed into the senior management strategy and review meetings.

Staff had access to employee assist programme which is confidential and free, which offered short term counselling and support. Managers had access to an external confidential mentor and also to a charity mentoring programme.