The Firefly Club Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

There was a positive atmosphere at the service. The registered manager and leaders were a visible presence, who understood the support people and staff needed. There were policies in processes in place around equality and diversity to help ensure everybody associated with the service was fairly treated, without discrimination. There were effective governance processes in place which helped to maintain and improve the quality of the service. The provider had made consistent improvements since our last inspection, which reflects that the key question of well led is now rated good.

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.

Staff told us that their priority was to support people to be safe and happy. They felt there was a positive atmosphere at the service and that the registered manager and leaders were open, friendly and took time to listen to their concerns. The provider gained feedback from staff about the culture at the service through surveys. 88% of staff who responded to the survey felt the service tailored the care provided to the needs of individuals. The registered manager told us they worked to celebrate individuals’ personal beliefs and cultures. For example, they held themed cultural days, which helped to promote an inclusive environment.

The provider had a statement of purpose which outlined the visions aims and strategy of the service. These values included promoting equality and diversity and celebrating people as individuals.

Staff told us the registered manager has the skills, knowledge and experience to lead effectively. The provider gained feedback from staff about the leadership at the service through surveys. 100% of staff who responded to the survey felt leaders had the abilities and integrity to effectively manage the service. Staff told us the registered manager held regular team meetings, where they were given feedback and asked for ideas about how to improve care.

The registered manager was committed to their own ongoing learning and development. They were taking training qualifications to be able to support staff with face-to-face training. They had also completed their Level 5 Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care and level 2 in Mental Health Awareness. This helped to ensure they possessed the skills, knowledge and experience to lead the service effectively.

Staff told us they felt confident in speaking up and raising any concerns they had about people’s care. Staff said when they raised issues they were listened to and the registered manager gave them feedback about how their concerns had been addressed. The registered manager told us about the importance of creating an environment where staff were comfortable in raising issues or concerns, especially in light of people not being able to raise concerns themselves due to their communication needs.

There was a whistleblowing policy in place. This detailed how staff, people and the public could raise concerns to the provider and also external professional organisations. The provider gained feedback through staff surveys around the culture of the service. The provider had an action plan which took in to account staff feedback to help makes improvements to how staff could report concerns.

Staff told us the registered manager was very supportive regarding flexible working and making reasonable adjustments depending on their personal circumstances or cultural customs. The registered manager told us they had worked to develop a positive atmosphere within the staffing team, by ensuring they staff were treated fairly and their individual circumstances were considered and adjusted too.

Staff completed equality and diversity training, which helped develop their understanding around inclusion and celebrating people’s individuality. The provider had equality and diversity policies in place. These outlined how the provider would work to ensure nobody associated with the service would suffer unfair treatment or discrimination.

The registered manager had a good oversight of the service. They had systems in place to monitor the quality and safety of the service and maintained a good knowledge of best practice in health and social care. They understood their regulatory responsibilities and had submitted statutory notifications to CQC as required.

The registered manager completed audits of key aspects of the service including medicines management and care plans. This helped them to oversee the quality of care and identify where improvements were needed. The provider had commissioned an external company to complete a review of the medicines management systems at the service. The external company had made a set of recommendations to improve the quality of medicines management systems, which the provider was working towards implementing. The provider had a service improvement plan in place. This detailed areas where improvements were needed and the actions required to make these changes. The service improvement plan reflected actions identified at our previous inspection, feedback from relatives and audits.

Staff told us how they worked in partnership with external professionals, such as community nursing teams to help people manage health conditions, such as diabetes. Staff told us they also had positive relationships with other stakeholders where people had regular medical input and support. The registered manager understood the importance of effective partnerships with professionals. They said this helped to promote provide outcomes for people, especially when decisions were needed in people’s best interests. The registered manager had worked to improve communication with relatives. Actions included, organising regular reviews, communication through social media or through phone calls. They told us this helped to ensure relatives felt consulted an involved in people’s care.

We could not collect the evidence to score this evidence category. During our assessment we received and found no concerns in relation to partnership and communities. Partners we contacted had no specific feedback on this area.

The provider had recognised where improvements could made around communication with external professionals. This included implementing a new professional communication log at the front of people’s health files to ensure recommendations from professionals were implemented by staff.

Staff told us they were committed to supporting people to enhance their quality of life. This included developing communication aids to help people express their feelings and opinions. The registered manager told us they had a service action plan to drive improvement in line with findings from our last inspection. They had encouraged in staff taking extra training courses and supported them to apply the new learning to their role. This helped develop staff skills and improve the quality of care delivered.

There was an updated service development action plan in place which was used to improve the quality of the service. This included recommendations from the previous inspection and feedback from people’s relatives and staff. There were also regular quality audits taking place which helped to identify issues and areas for improvement. The registered manager reviewed incident reports, but there was limited evidence of how learning from these incidents was applied to prevent similar incidents happening again. The registered manager acknowledged more development was needed in this area.