Choices Homecare (Bolton and Bury)

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

We found care staff to be well-intentioned towards people. However support provided to people was mainly task based and lacked person-centred approach. One relative told us: ”The carers we have at the moment are fine but several won’t/don’t engage with her about anything other than the mechanics of her care. It’s a lost opportunity I think and suggest that they are doing the tasks but actually don’t care. I’m not sure they are interested in their clients.”

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.

We did not look at Kindness, compassion and dignity during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

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 found care staff to be well-intentioned towards people. However support provided to people was mainly task based and lacked person-centred approach. One relative told us, ”The carers we have at the moment are fine but several don’t engage with her about anything other than the mechanics of her care. It’s a lost opportunity I think and suggest that they are doing the tasks but actually don’t care. I’m not sure they are interested in their clients.” However other relatives told us, “We have a care plan which is updated after assessment which I’m involved in. I have had full involvement in decision making.”, My relative is supported to make choices as far as she can.” People told us that not all of the staff knew their needs well and there was a lack of consistency in regard to staff and visits. Not all of the people felt that they were involved in their care planning and review of their needs. One relative told us ”Mum is very quiet and doesn’t make a fuss but her care plan seems to ignore her changing needs, in any case the staff never seem to look at it.” Another relative told us, ”We have a care plan and, as relative I have explain to him if there is a change of carer as he can get anxious. Occasionally I got involved with the care plan via social worker, but that was a few years ago now.”

We have received very little feedback from staff in regards to how they support people to be as independent as possible. One staff member told us, "We spend time talking to people. You make people feel that they have a friend visiting. Small things makes person appreciated.”

During this assessment we looked at 10 people's care plans. The care plans we looked at lacked detail about people's care routines. For examples, care plans simply stated, 'Provide personal care' and did not provide a break down regarding assistance people may need in areas such as bathing/showering, toileting and oral hygiene. We were shown a new care plan format where this information would be recorded.

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.

We did not look at Workforce wellbeing and enablement during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.