3 December 2018
During a routine inspection
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting seven people in the City of Bristol. The service has not yet built up a client base of its own . Although that it what it is currently proactively aiming to do. Until then the service currently only provides staff to other agency's. Our feedback was taken from the registered managers of the agency’s concerned.
Not everyone using Patience Company receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care', help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.
Care and support was being well planned and staff supported people in sufficient numbers to meet their needs and keep them safe. People were supported to take and manage their medicines safely.
Staff were being trained and had their skills regularly checked. Staff had the competency and understanding to ensure people received the care and support they required. Staff knew how to provide this in the way people wished to be supported. Staff were positive about the support and training they were offered. Staff had a caring approach to their work and understood the values of the organisation they worked for.
People were supported to maintain good physical health and wellbeing. People were assisted to access health care services when they needed them. People were asked for their consent before any care and were encouraged to make decisions and choices in their daily life.
People had their own detailed care plans in place; a copy was kept in the person's home. The care plans provided useful guidance about each person's care needs and were updated regularly to make sure they were accurate and up to date. The people we spoke with also said an initial assessment was completed when they first started using the service. This enabled staff to be clear about the level of care people needed.
People were sent satisfaction questionnaires to find out their views of the service. This enabled the service to continually improve based on feedback from people and anything that could be changed. There was a range of quality monitoring processes in place. These were to monitor and improve the service.
Staff told us the management was approachable, responsive and listened to any ideas for areas for improvement.