Fosse Healthcare - Lincoln

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 service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. We found people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect. People gave mixed feedback about the care they received. They gave positive feedback about how staff supported them with personal care needs and were mostly happy with staff approaches. Records also showed staff to be caring and thoughtful. However, people felt some staff rushed them and they were frustrated that care was not always scheduled for agreed times. People felt office staff were not helpful when they raised concerns. Staff mostly felt supported by management but were unaware of the values of the company or initiatives in place to help improve their wellbeing.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People gave mixed feedback about how staff treated them. Some people felt respected and cared for, they told us staff were kind and gentle, while other people felt their beliefs and wishes were not being upheld. For example, one person told us, “Some [staff] are kind enough and caring, depends on who you get.” Another person said "I feel [staff] are quite respectful in their own manner. They are caring in their own way too. They are respectful, but we hold different values." However, we also received concerns such as a person who said, “I do not feel that I get any respect about anything even my beliefs. I have given up on expecting any privacy or respect, that’s how I feel.” Another person told us, “Not enough time to wash me, which is awful. [Staff are] mostly brilliant, but not all by any means. Very respectful but it can be a stressful experience." Some people felt rushed and told us staff did not always have the time to listen to them. This made them very distressed and frustrated.

Staff knew people’s preferences well and records showed staff acted in a caring and thoughtful manner towards people by offering to do additional tasks and checking they had everything they needed. One staff member told us how they ensured people’s dignity was upheld when providing personal care. They told us, “When giving personal care, I always keep half their body covered and start at the top and then talk to them and then once their top is half-dressed then do the lower half.”

Professionals gave positive feedback about how caring staff were. One professional gave written feedback stating, “Following an annual review, [Person] was full of compliments for [staff member], saying how professional they were, that they were really supportive and has been extremely helpful recently while [person] has been recovering from hospital.”

People did not feel staff respected their choices. People told us there were cultural differences between them and language differences made communication difficult. One person told us, “The language, food and cultural differences are just too difficult." Another person said, “How can they respect my beliefs and preferences when we don’t understand one another.”

Despite people’s feedback, staff told us how they had actively encouraged people’s preferences and choice. For example, a staff member told us how they had worked with the person and the registered manager to arrange to take them to a live football match of their favourite team. This was very meaningful to the person who had not been able to go for a long time without someone to support them.

People’s individual likes and dislikes and cultural and social needs were fully assessed prior to care being delivered. This process fully involved people, their relatives and any external professionals as relevant. People’s communication needs were also assessed and this was documented in the communication part of their care plan for staff awareness. The provider ensured all staff passed a basic language assessment where English was not the staff members first language, to better aid good communication.

People told us staff did support them to maintain their independence. One person told us, “I am helped to be independent by having someone check on me each day and help me. In that respect it doesn’t matter what time they appear.” Other people told us their choices were not always met. A relative said, “[My family member] is really not comfortable with male carers, but they still come."

Staff told us how they supported people to do what they could for themselves in the shower to maintain their independence as well as supporting people to help prepare with meals. Staff understood it was important to try and motivate people to remain mobile and in control of their care.

There were processes in place for reviewing and assessing ways to support people’s independence safely. The registered manager involved external professionals such as occupation therapists or district nurses where needed to ensure best practice was being followed.

People did not feel they could rely on the office and management teams to ensure their care was well planned or changes communicated to them. They told us when they rang to alert to a problem or changing need, help was not always given in a reasonable time period One person told us, “The office normally do try to help, but they need to be more efficient and to actually listen to what is being asked or said." Relatives told us there had been times where care has been suspended or rearranged without proper communication causing distress and inconvenience. Others felt there was a lack of continuity, particularly for people with additional needs where building trust was paramount.

Staff understood to call the office and emergency services for advice in the event of an emergency or change of need. They told us examples of when they had worked with the support of the emergency services to ensure emergency care was given to people.

Staff mostly felt supported by management but almost all staff were unaware of the values of the company or initiatives in place to help improve their wellbeing. However, one staff member was aware and told us, “[Managers] sent us out information on that where they said you can come into the office and have a private chat and put you in touch with supportive help lines and help outside of work to get the help you need.”

The provider had various initiatives in place to support staff with their role and their wellbeing such as employee assistance programmes, supervision and a quiet room in the office where staff could come and access free snacks and drinks and relax and take time out or chat to someone over a drink if they preferred. There were policies in place to ensure staff worked as safely as possible when lone working and all risks were assessed. Rotas were planned so that staff had sufficient break periods to promote a positive work-life balance.