Aroma Care - Cotswold

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.

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.

The provider always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Relatives and people who used the service commented on the kind and caring nature of the staff. Comments included, “The staff are caring, respectful and very kind.” One person told us, “I am well looked after, and staff always treat me with respect and dignity.” Relatives told us, “The staff are kind and caring and nothing is ever to much trouble for any of them” and “The carers who come are wonderful they are all so kind and nothing is a trouble to any of them." Daily notes confirmed staff approached people in a person-centred way and not in a task-oriented way. We saw staff had received training on dignity and respect. The manager told us, “Staff do training, and they are taught during induction what is appropriate and inappropriate to say and write. We teach dignity to all staff.”

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

People’s choices regarding preferred gender of staff, physical abilities, and specialist diets were clearly documented in their care plans, which helped to ensure their needs were consistently met. However, partnership agencies told us they had received some concerns about the quality of care provided and not all staff knew what to do to support people.

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

People’s choices regarding preferred gender of staff, physical abilities, and specialist diets were clearly documented in their care plans, which helped to ensure their needs were consistently met. However, partnership agencies told us they had received some concerns about the quality of care provided and not all staff knew what to do to support people.

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

People we spoke to told us they felt their needs, views and wishes were listened to. We saw evidence all staff received regular spot checks. This allowed the managers to have assurances around staff response times to ensure people were supported in a timely manner when they needed support. However, the manager had not picked up on the issues we found around scheduling of care calls. We found rotas were not manageable and staff were not always given enough travel time. The manager explained the barriers faced by staff when travelling such as weekly farmer’s markets and variable road works which delayed staff. The manager had failed to pick up on the start times for all staff being late, which in turn had a consecutive effect on all other calls and staff taking their allocated break time. However, at the time of the inspection we could find no impact on people using the service as a result of this.

The provider always cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff, and was exceptional at supporting and enabling staff to always deliver person-centred care.

We saw evidence staff were treated exceptionally well, and the provider went beyond what would normally be expected to show they prioritised their staff. The manager told us, “Although the Cotswold office is small, all staff have access to the larger offices, such as our Coventry office which all have staff multifaith and welfare rooms with a TV, games console, kitchen and air hockey. A lot of the staff who work at the Cotswold branch live in Coventry and we encourage them to use the facilities on their days off or whenever they want. We always do birthday cakes for staff; staff go on nights out and have team building days; recently we did a sponsored team building day where staff completed challenges on a fun day raising money for charity. I facetime staff on their birthdays and staff are encouraged to socialise with each other outside of work.” We saw in the Cotswold office there were pamphlets for numerous different organisations which supported people who needed support with their mental health and how to contact different organisations to give feedback on the service. There was also Aroma care branded leaflets on ‘taking care of yourself’. The manager told us they had recently implemented a new staff recognition scheme. A jar was placed in the office and when a staff member received a compliment a piece of paper with their name was put in the jar. Bi-annually the manager would randomly pull a name out of the jar and the staff member received a weekend away with their family or friends such as to a holiday resort, a trip to the seaside, or for a short-term holiday rental which was fully paid for. They also received a certificate. The manager also told us how they supported staff who were new to the UK by arranging accommodation for them in a house rented by the provider. Staff told us, “They found me accommodation for 1-2 months and paid my rent. It was 1 bedroom in a shared house. I had my privacy. It wasn't over-crowded. I've since moved to a new place” and “Aroma Care treat me well.”