Ash Grove

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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

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last inspection we rated this key question good. At this assessment we did not assess all quality statements within this key question. The overall rating for this key question remains good based on the findings at the last inspection.

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.

Although relatives shared their concerns in relation to the high use of agency staff and not all agency staff knowing family members well, they spoke positively about the permanent staff. Comments included, “They (staff) know [person’s name] likes and dislikes.” “All the Mencap staff are fabulous.” “All the permanent staff understand [person’s name] needs and a new member of staff is brilliant with them. It's a well led service and the atmosphere when permanent staff are on is good.” “The staff are great. What's good is that they look after [person’s name] well.”

Staff were observed to be kind and caring towards people. Staff spoken with used respectful language when talking about the people they supported. People appeared happy and comfortable in their environment.

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’s feedback raised no concerns in relation to independence, choice and control. One relative said, “[Person’s name] does various activities and has lots of opportunities. They (staff) know [person’s name] likes and dislikes.” Care records showed people and, where appropriate, their relatives, were consulted when care plans were written. People were encouraged to maintain their independence. Support plans reflected people's interests, likes and dislikes, and described tasks they liked to do themselves. For example, one person’s support plan stated, “I like to take part in putting together the food menus.”

We observed good interactions between staff and people. People were comfortable with staff and presented in a relaxed, calm and engaging way. People also engaged and interacted well with each other. For example, two people were helping each other make a cup of tea and talked about their holiday, then another person joined the conversation, and they all reminisced about the holiday.

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.