Blue River Home Care Waltham Abbey Also known as Blue River Home Care Greater London

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 63 (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 make sure people’s care and treatment was effective because they did not always assess, check and discuss people’s health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them. Whilst people had care plans in place, no formal pre-assessment documentation existed. The registered manager told us that she wrote down pre-assessments in her notebook but that they were not legible. Therefore, care was not based on a comprehensive, documented assessment of needs. This meant that there was a risk that people’s needs were not consistently identified, recorded or reviewed, and the provider could not always demonstrate that care was planned and delivered in line with people’s current needs and preferences.

Staff and the registered manager demonstrated a good understanding of people’s needs and spoke confidently about how care was delivered in line with this. This meant people generally received care that reflected their preferences. However, this was not consistently reflected in care plans or risk assessments which were not always up to date or sufficiently detailed to demonstrate how people’s needs had changed. For example, one person told us, “They inherited my care plan from the local social services. I do have a copy of it somewhere.” Another person said, “I don’t know anything about a care plan and who set it up.”

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people and we saw records where they had liaised with health professionals and GP’s. Care workers worked well together and demonstrated a good understanding of the people they cared for. The registered manager had regular contact with care workers, families and people who used the service. One person told us, “The manager does call me every few weeks to see how things are going.”

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support. One relative told us, “[Care worker] was the carer when [relative’s] physiotherapy was stopped, she came and had some training in her own time from the physiotherapist so that she could still help [relative] with it. She is so good.”

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. Although some reviews had been completed such as home visit quality reviews and a clinical review for someone with a catheter, these were not consistently recorded or clearly linked to people’s overall care planning.

The registered manager told us that annual reviews of care plans were undertaken, however records to evidence these were not available at the time of assessment.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment. One care worker told us, “I always ask [consent], and explain what you are going to do before you do it.” A relative told us, “[Relative’s] carers are all very kind and caring towards [relative] and always treat [relative] with respect and never rush [them] at all.”