Kensington Home 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

People were mostly treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. Their privacy and dignity was respected. Their preferences and choices were mostly respected, although they did experience some difficulties in staff being able to understand and communicate some basic information regarding their choices. People felt able to retain their independence.

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.

Whilst the majority of people we spoke with felt staff were generally compassionate and treated them with dignity, they felt staff did not always, or were not always able to, listen to them attentively. They also felt staff were not always able to communicate with them as well as they would like. One said, “I’d say 50% are good but the rest still haven’t got used to talking to me and have different culture needs.” The registered manager was responsive to our feedback in this area and began making improvements during the assessment process, to ensure there were opportunities for greater rapport and understanding to be built between care staff and people using the service. We received mixed feedback in this area, with a range of positive feedback too, such as, “They are always friendly and they always uphold [person’s] dignity.” The majority of people we spoke with stated they were not told in advance when there was a change of carer. This had an impact on people’s levels of anxiety and calm and we fed this back to the provider. The registered manager was aware of this and had made recent attempts to improve rota planning and communication. We encouraged them to continue this improvement work.

The registered manager was proud of how staff supported people and ensured staff understood the expectations of delivering care that was underpinned by kindness and compassion. The provider’s interview processes explored whether applicants could demonstrate a compassionate approach and spot-checks on staff helped ensure they were conducting themselves in this manner. There were appropriate policies in place to ensure people’s dignity was maintained and that staff has a comprehensive understanding of people’s core needs and backgrounds before they met. Equality and diversity training ensured staff understood core principles of equality and conducted themselves accordingly. The provider’s induction process did assess applicant’s spoken English, but the registered manager recognised this could be more formally documented and assessed, and the importance of face to face communication and understanding playing a part in induction, shadowing and training.

Partners consistently experienced staff interacting with people in a calm, compassionate way. One said, “Care staff were always courteous and polite when speaking with the clients, ensure their dignity was maintained and provided choices throughout calls.”

The majority of calls people received were short calls to help with specific aspects of personal care. Within that context, people fed back that staff did treat them as individuals and respected their needs. Concerns were raised about the ability of some staff to communicated effectively and this is described in other evidence categories.

Office staff demonstrated a strong understanding of people’s needs and preferences. They put in place flexible approaches to support people’s individual beliefs and choices. The staff group brought a diverse range of experiences and the registered manager hoped to utilise these more in the future, with themed staff meetings for example. Staff understood what was important to people. Partners observed positive interactions between staff and people. “One point that particularly stood out was a genuine rapport between carer and client, the carer arrived prior to second carer and instead of being in the car came into the property to talk with the client.”

The initial assessment of people’s needs was comprehensive and enabled staff to have a detailed background of people’s individualities. The registered manager had begun analysing results from the 6 monthly quality reviews to ensure people’s specific needs and wants were listened to and acted on.

A significant majority of people we spoke with confirmed they had been fully involved in the planning of their care from the outset, with family involvement where appropriate. They confirmed the support provided by staff meant they could stay at home longer and remain more independent. One said, “Yes the carers have always given me my toothbrush to clean my teeth myself and any other things I am able to do.” One relative said, “Yes the carers help mum be mobile by using her walking trolley around the house and do as much for herself as is possible.”

The registered manager was open to new ways of working to encourage and enable people’s independence, and to minimise restrictions. One external professional told us, “Representatives of Kensington attended care providers forum and were open to the new ways of working with regards to single handed techniques and utilising equipment to mitigate additional care staff which promoting the independence of the client.”

The understanding of people’s level of independence started with a comprehensive assessment but the visiting officer. This set out what equipment people may need, how they liked to be in control of decisions/activities and what level of support staff needed to provide. The registered manager had planned to survey people and these were drafted, but had yet to be sent to people. They would use the results of these surveys to make further improvements to the service.

Whilst this did not have a significant impact in terms of immediate safety, it was clearly a consistent area of concern for people. People did not always have confidence that care staff would be able to react to their immediate needs, as they had experiences difficulties in communicating their needs to staff. The registered manager acknowledged this and had put in place some steps to make improvements during the assessment.

Staff completed daily records and highlighted any significant changes in people’s presentation. They escalated any concerns or queries appropriately to office staff who knew when to seek further help. One external partner said, “Staff have highlighted presentation changes in clients or addressed need for additional medical help intervention to ensure the needs of the client are met.” The provider had a range of care plans and risk assessments to draw on to suit people’s individual circumstances. Care plans were written in such a way as to give staff a comprehensive overview of how people generally presented, and what might indicate they needed additional support, for instance with bespoke care plans around diabetes.

Staff felt well supported, with mandatory training as well as additional training to improve their skills and knowledge. The registered manager valued diversity and the strength that life experience could bring to a staff team. They led their team well and enabled staff to raise concerns or questions if they had them.

There were appropriate wellbeing and related policies in place to support staff to attend work in the right frame of mind. Staff had access to a wellbeing app on their phones. The registered manager was responsive to feedback about considering a mental health wellbeing champion or similar to further support staff and to signpost to good practice.