Look Ahead Domiciliary Care (Hertfordshire)

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 inspection the rating has changed to requires improvement. This meant people were not always 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.

People were supported by staff who spoke fondly about the people they supported. We observed some interactions with people where you could see staff and people had built a positive relationship. One staff member said, “I have worked with [person] for some time now and I want to see them grow as a person.” Another staff member said, “Honestly it is a rewarding role. The opportunity to help people and get the best out of life. Especially when they need support and giving the same opportunity.” However, we did see some relationships where staff did not always take into account people’s individual preferences and desires.

We observed staff interactions to be caring. However, we found further improvements needed to be made to instil a culture of care in which staff truly promoted people's individuality, protected their rights and enabled them to develop and flourish.

People were not always supported to have full choice and control of their daily lives. We observed in some cases people’s voices were heard and staff respected their choice. However, we also observed staff unaware of the control and restrictions they had imposed on the people they supported.

We observed people communicating verbally and through body language to express what they wanted to do. In some circumstances staff reacted positively and immediately, however, there were examples where staff did not truly listen to what the person was trying to communicate.

Staff felt the provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff. One staff member said, “I feel there is enough support, [manager] is always here. We have meetings every two months, we discuss lessons learnt. They listen to us and want feedback.” Another staff member said, “The change in management has been really good. We feel like we can really get to know what our roles are and we feel listened to.”