Lifeways Community Care (Swindon)

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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

In this key question we looked at the quality statement ‘Independence, choice and control’. People told us they were able to access a range of activities and felt they had choices in their everyday life. However, one person told us staff were too busy to take part in an activity that was meaningful to them. Relatives felt staffing levels did not promote people’s independence, choice and control. We observed staff did not always promote this.

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.

People told us they were supported to make decisions about how they would spend their time and staff supported them to work towards longer term goals. People told us they were able to visit their friends and family as much as they would like to. People told us they were supported to attend hobbies, go shopping, for meals out, go out to meet friends and go on trips that they wanted to. People showed pictures of the hobbies that they regularly enjoyed, recent events they had attended and family get togethers. One person told us they would like staff to join in with activities such as puzzle books but told us "the staff are too busy”. People’s relatives also gave us mixed feedback. Some relatives felt that people were offered choices however another relative told us: "He gets what he's given".

Staff gave mixed feedback about people having access to local communities and activities they enjoyed. Some staff told us that this was impacted by staffing levels. Comments included: "Most of the time there is no 1:1, when this happens, [people] just stay indoors.” Another staff told us: "We don't have the staff to support [people]. They will go out but not as much as they used to," and "if a staff member is on annual leave, [the shift] doesn’t get put out to agency, leaving staff lone working with [people], meaning they are unable to go out for the duration of the annual leave." Some staff told us that people's access to the community and activities they enjoyed were at times limited as staff did not drive. Other staff told us people went out often, comments included "Yes, I believe the people we support do go out a lot", "We are short staffed but as a great team we do our best to make sure [people] get out as much as possible" and "I'm very happy with how much [people] go out. The services do a lot of good work to make sure people are having a good balanced life." Staff told us people were supported to keep in touch with their family and friends through visits and telephone calls.

Staff did not always ask people their choice or listen to people's requests. For example, we saw that when choosing a film, 2 people were asked what they would like to watch, however one person who was unable to verbally communicate was not asked. We also observed a staff member telling a person to "Go and sit in your chair". However, some people were supported by staff to access and partake in activities they enjoyed and were meaningful and enjoyable.

People’s care and support plans contained some information about the types of choices people could make. However, some people's care plans did not guide staff to support people to make their own choices when they were unable to verbally communicate. For example, one person’s care and support plan stated: ‘Because I cannot read, I need my staff team to discuss with me any activities I may have planned for the day.’ There was no information on how this person could be supported to choose what activities took place or how they were supported to understand what activities were in place, such as through the use of visual aids.

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.