Archived: Willow Home Care Ltd

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 Inadequate. This meant people were not treated with compassion and there were breaches of dignity; staff caring attitudes had significant shortfalls.

This service scored 25 (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 treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity. Staff did not treat colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect. The provider did not treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity. There had been incidents where people had not been treated with empathy and compassion. For example, where there had been consistent lateness of calls people had not been informed. People had not been able to communicate with or gain a response from the office when needing to raise a concern and had not been treated with compassion. Staff had not always treated people with compassion and kindness. They had not always requested input from healthcare professionals when necessary.

The provider did not treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The provider did not take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. During the assessment we gained feedback from people and relatives. This raised concerns around the care provided to people and how it was affecting their personal needs. For example, 1 relative told us, “[Person] is 94 years old, they used to have 2 female carers, this was then changed without any reason to 2 young men, this meant [Person] is now declining personal care. Their preference is female.” We checked the person’s care plan and this did not identify their preference of female carers. We raised this with the manager and provider who confirmed they had not gathered this information during assessment.

The provider did not promote people’s independence, people did not know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. People we spoke with did not provide positive feedback around the conduct of the staff who supported them. 1 person told us, “They are always late, never say why. When we call the office, they never answer.” Care plans did not contain information about people’s choices or how to promote people’s independence. There was no guidance for staff about how to support people to express their choices.

The provider did not listen to or understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

There were no effective systems in place to make sure staff responded to people’s changing and immediate needs. The processes in place had not been effective when people’s needs changed. People had been placed at risk of discomfort and distress because the senior staff had not ensured staff had accurate information about their changing needs, for example, when people’s health changed.

The provider did not care about or promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. Staff were not given accurate information to care for people and meet their needs. 1 relative told us, “We have had to show the carers what to do, and we have had to follow the staff around to ensure they do what is needed.” The provider did not have effective systems in place to ensure staff had the skills, knowledge and competency to deliver good quality care. Staff had not received regular training or had their competencies checked.