Archived: Torbay Home Care Guinness Care and Support

We spoke with four people who used the service and four relatives or friends. People told us that they felt that the service had improved. One person said, "We get the same carers more or less. It has settled down and seems to be organised better than before." People told us that their choices and wishes were being listened to and respected.

We found that improvements had been made in the planning and consistency of care. Care plans had been reviewed and contained up to date information. People were informed about changes of staff delivering care and the timing of visits.

People said that they felt safe with care workers. Staff had an increased awareness of the risk of neglect posed by missed visits.

The provider had recruited additional staff and this was ongoing. People told us that staff were competent to meet their needs.

People's feedback was responded to and regular quality monitoring checks took place.

However, some planned care had not been delivered. Some people had experienced missed visits. This put one person we met at risk of harm or neglect. We saw this had not been identified as a risk by the provider. We found that there were not always enough staff to meet people's needs.

People wanted their care delivered by a small, consistent group of care workers. However, one person had received care from 41 care workers in the last 6 months. Most people and relatives we spoke with expressed concern about the number of different carers who visited them. They felt frustrated when staff were not familiar with their personal care routines. However, they did praise individual care workers. Comments included, "They are brilliant and work 150 per cent"

People said individual care workers treated them respectfully but the agency did not respect their choices. For example, two people who wanted same sex care workers were routinely sent care workers of the opposite sex.

Quality monitoring systems were in place and had lead to some improvements. However, when people gave feedback via telephone calls, it was not always recorded. Analysis of incidents and learning from missed calls had not taken place.

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