Versita Care Ltd

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. At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating remains good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 65 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Not everyone felt people were always treated with compassion by staff, it was felt support could be inconsistent. Feedback was mixed and did not show everyone felt people had all developed a therapeutic relationship with their staff, or that everyone felt their experiences were always fully understood by staff. We received feedback that some staff lacked the required level of skills and training to know how to interact with and respond to some people effectively. However, we observed overall people had kind and caring relationships with staff. We saw overall staff had a good understanding of people's preferences and wishes. In some circumstances the level of staffing people required for their safety, limited the amount of physical space available to people within their home. The provider was aware of this issue and was collaborating with relevant parties to address this. Young people had control over the amount of involvement they wished from relatives.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. People's cultural and religious needs were understood and met by staff. People were supported to follow their religious observances. People's dietary requirements in relation to their protected characteristics were understood, met and respected. People’s communication needs were understood and met. Staff were observed to have a good understanding of how people communicated, including their non-verbal communication. People had visual communication aids where required, to support them, such as pictorial information, schedules and now and next boards to aid their understanding.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people had choice and control over their own care. People and relatives felt staff promoted contact with families. People chose who they wanted contact with and were supported by staff to do so. We saw people were consulted by staff about their choices, in relation to how they wanted to spend their time, the activities they wished to participate in, what they wanted to eat and where they wanted to go. People were supported by staff with the development of skills such as budgeting, cooking and shopping. People’s views about their care were sought by the provider via conversations with them, reviews and service user surveys.

Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act as they wished to minimise any distress. We received mixed feedback, not everyone felt staff were always able to anticipate people’s needs and respond to signs of discomfort and distress. Not everyone felt staff had the required skills to know how to support people at times of distress. However, we observed overall staff were responsive and some feedback was positive. We received feedback staff were patient and had a good understanding of some people. We saw staff understood both people’s verbal and non-verbal communications well and understood the signals which indicated a change in people's moods, such as the use of specific words. We saw staff act to anticipate and meet people’s needs quickly and in ways that reduced and mitigated people’s discomfort and distress.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff told us they felt well supported in their role; they felt valued. The provider cared about the wellbeing of their staff and had regular contact with them.