Whispers Care Solutions 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 remained good.

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

This service scored 70 (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 and staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. People and their relatives overall told us staff were kind, caring and knew people and people mostly felt respected and listened to. Comments from people included, “All very kind and caring respectful and considerate, no bad word to say about any of them, amazing”, “Carers I have are brilliant and lovely”, “They treat people with dignity and compassion … they are so kind and nice” and “They listen and promote dignity. They’re generally respectful.”Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Leaders were passionate about improving people’s quality of life by understanding and supporting them to achieve the outcomes they wanted. This passion was reflected throughout the service when we spoke with staff. For example, 2 people were supported to have an experience they had never been able to do before. In another example, a person was supported to develop their confidence and skills to enable them to widen their social circle and access a broader range of activities. This had improved the person’s emotional wellbeing.

We did not look at Treating people as individuals during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Independence, choice and control during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Responding to people’s immediate needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

The provider demonstrated a commitment to staff wellbeing; systems and processes were in place to offer staff support. However, we received mixed feedback from staff about how supported they felt by the provider. Whilst some staff were positive about the support from the provider, other staff did not feel their concerns relating to their personal wellbeing were consistently heard and acted upon by the provider. Leaders told us how they monitored staff wellbeing and were alert for signs of any staff struggling at work to enable them to offer support. However, some people raised concerns around staff’s wellbeing; the hours worked by staff and staff not always being provided with enough travel time resulting in staff sacrificing their breaks, people were particularly concerned for staff unfamiliar with the local area. The provider told us additional travel time was provided to staff who were less familiar with the area or new to driving.

Despite assurances from leaders regarding feedback mechanisms and staff engagement, feedback from staff did not demonstrate these had always been effective. There was an opportunity for the provider to enhance transparency, strengthen communication, and improve the tracking of staff feedback to ensure concerns were properly addressed. This would enable the provider to improve trust and engagement amongst staff. Leaders spoke passionately about supporting and enabling staff to develop their knowledge and skills. Career progression and succession planning was a key theme promoted by the service and we observed, and were told, of opportunities offered to staff to develop and progress. Leaders were able to demonstrate how they had recognised key skills, passions and opportunities to build staff’s confidence to support them to undertake different roles within the service.