Living Glory Social Care

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 requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 45 (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 always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity.

Audits and checks completed had not consistently enabled the provider to identify and address the on-going concerns we found during this assessment. Systems to assess, monitor and mitigate risks to people, including risks associated with the call monitoring, medicines management and support planning were still not consistently robust. This did not demonstrate the provider adopted a caring and dignified approach. Staff had not always been provided with up-to-date guidance on people’s increased risks and changing needs, in a timely way.

Where support plans lacked detail in relation to personal histories and preferences, staff we spoke with appeared to know people well. Relatives also told us that staff knew people well and how to support them.

People and relatives told us they felt staff were caring. One person told us’ “The carers are kind, and I keep the same ones which is good.” Another person told us, “I am happy with the care, I have no complaints.” A relative told us, “They [care staff] are kind and caring and they assist me to take [name] out. He is pleased with them, and they have nice body language.” Another relative told us, “She smiles with them when they greet her. Her eyes light up when she sees them. I have every faith in them. They are respectful.” People and relatives also told us that communication was good overall.

Most staff had received training in relation to dignity and respect.

All people and their relatives told us they felt staff were kind and compassionate and treated them with dignity.

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not always take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The provider had failed to ensure all people's support plans were personalised to reflect their individual care needs and preferences for how their care was delivered. This included PBS plans and supporting people to set and achieve their goals and aspirations. Some people felt their care was not responsive to their needs and the inconsistency of their call times reflected this. Overall, people and their relatives told us they felt their individual needs were respected and met. Staff told us they recognised the importance of positive interactions with people, particularly those with more complex needs and those who lived alone.

When carrying out reviews of care, the provider did not ensure they had considered and addressed people’s individual communication needs to effectively include all people in this process. The quality of these reviews needed to be improved as we identified areas where required changes and updates to care plans had not been made.The provider shared with us ways in which they told us they communicated with people and offered to provide information in formats that would support them. However, some people felt unhappy with how information was communicated with them.

Feedback was from people and relatives on the extent to which they were treated as individuals was positive overall. One relative told us how the staff, ‘respected their faith, whilst in their home’. Another relative told us, “They [care staff] talk to us before cutting body hair. This is really important to us.” We found this had been an improvement since the last assessment.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People and relatives told us they were offered choice and had control over the decisions being made by care staff. However, we found where people lacked capacity or had limited ability to communicate verbally, there was a lack of use of tools or technology to promote people’s independence. For example, staff were not working with 1 person to them to help encourage independence and the development of new skills in relation to eating their meals. In addition, we found that male care staff had been assigned to 1 person without any rationale or evidence of this being in the person’s best interests. There was no evidence this was their choice or preference as no consultation or meetings had taken place to include the person in this decision.

Staff had received training on promoting independence, and staff we spoke with could explain how they supported and encouraged people to maintain independence. Although staff told us they had enough time to promote independence, call records and staff rotas did not reflect this approach based upon short calls and overlapping calls scheduled by the provider.

Most people and relatives we spoke with told us they felt they were encouraged to maintain independence and were given choices. People we spoke with told us they felt able to make their own choices and decisions and that staff members respected these.

Where staff were required to support people to access the community and take part in activities to uphold their interests and hobbies, we saw this was taking place. One relative told us, “They [care staff] are like mates. [Name] goes for walks with them and plays games with him. They do what he wants, and I am really pleased with them.

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

The provider failed to operate a robust system to ensure staff carried out calls to people as scheduled and as needed to maintain their safety and well-being.

On occasions calls had not taken place at all until the person or their relatives called the office to report this, several hours later.On 1 occasion this resulted in a person not receiving any support from the previous evening until lunchtime. Due to this person’s lack of mobility, this resulted in them not receiving any food or drinks or support with personal care including continence care resulting in them experiencing discomfort. We also found there was another occasion this occurred for another person. We were told by the provider that on both occasions this was due to miscommunication between staff who had swapped shifts. Based upon the providers own newsletter calls had not taken place on several occasions previously when staff had checked into calls but not attended. However, if the provider had operated robust oversight of the calls, this could have been acted upon sooner to prevent the calls being missed completely.

Most people we spoke with felt that the service was flexible and when appointments took place staff arrived earlier to ensure they were ready and where appropriate staff attended appointments with them.

We saw evidence that when people’s health deteriorated staff reported this to the office and this was escalated to the appropriate health professionals. However, we found for 1 service user this had not been the case. They had developed a pressure sore which staff had failed to report, leading to them being hospitalised.

People and relatives told us staff knew them well and responded to their needs and wishes. Overall relatives told us staff recognised triggers which may cause distressed responses prior to them occurring and de-escalated the situation appropriately. However, records needed to be improved as they did not clearly demonstrate this was the case. One relative told us they felt staff needed more training in 1 person’s health conditions as some staff lacked understanding.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff rotas we looked at demonstrated that calls were sometimes scheduled to overlap or start at the same time. We also found that there was not always travel time between calls taking place although the next calls were several miles away. This meant that it was impossible for staff to carry out the calls at the correct times, placing pressure on them. When this was raised with the registered manager, they could not provide an explanation as to why calls were being scheduled in this way. Records demonstrated due to the number of staff they had far more staff hours than people requiring support.

The provider operated staff recognition programmes to recognise staff performance and achievements to enhance their well-being. We saw that they held ‘employee of the month’ awards which were included in the newsletter, and they also held a breakfast meeting the day before our assessment to which staff were invited to drop in for drinks and snacks.

Staff meetings and supervisions took place; however, not all staff members were included in these. This was a missed opportunity for sharing of information and for staff to feel included and enabled to make suggestions within the service.

The registered manager told us they had sought feedback from staff members which was positive overall. Staff told us they felt listened to and valued by the management team and they felt they could raise any concerns they had.