Head Office

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• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

The service tailored the care, support and treatment offered to promote equality, remove barriers and protect people's rights. They ensured that staff had the skills and experience to address issues in relation to equality and diversity.

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.

Patients were involved in their care and treatment plans; they planned their activities and timetables with support staff and their choices and opinions were valued and listened to. They had been actively involved in making decisions about the service and gave examples of décor and activity planning. One young person told us they had made their room feel like home, and this had aided their recovery.

Staff were confident that care plans enabled them to deliver person-centred care. Patients needs were understood, and they were able to engage fully in their treatment plans. Staff gave specific examples of person-centred care.

We observed staff engaging with patients in a person-centred way, adjusting their approach according to the patient’s needs. The houses and bedrooms were reflective of what we would expect a young person’s room to look like and they had a choice in how they decorated and designed them. Some young people had requested to keep small pets and staff supported them to plan and care for these animals.

Patients were able to express their preferences and needs via their care planning. We saw where staff had identified particular hobbies and interests and then tailored days out and activities around these. There was nobody at the service at the time of our assessment who did not speak English as their first language, however, staff told us they had access to interpreters and information in other languages if required.

The patients we visited told us that the service had helped them work toward and achieve their goals. One patient had started to do some paid work in a field they felt passionate about, and others had accessed voluntary roles and educational courses. The provider was positive about patients being part of the community and offered opportunities within the organisation for work. Patients confirmed they had access to external care providers such as the local GP practice and other community health services. They felt the care they received, reflected their needs.

Staff encouraged patients to develop and maintain relationships both in the service and the wider community. There was information available for young people to get involved in and access in the wider community.

Partners gave feedback on care provision in real time when attending meetings for patients. Other partners also investigated incidents and were satisfied the provider acted appropriately for example local safeguarding teams.

Managers had regular meetings with staff outside the service. Daily briefings allowed managers to put into action changes to the care plans after incidents. We saw managers hold regular meetings with those with parental responsibility to discuss how they were responding to the needs of individual young people.

The patients told us they had access to their care plans and felt that staff had listened and developed that plan according to their needs. They also confirmed that they had all the information they needed which included what medication they were taking and why they were taking it. We did find one example of a patient who was unsure of what their recent medication changes were, we raised this on the day of our visit and the provider responded to this quickly.

We spoke with external agencies, such as social workers and community mental health teams and they confirmed that the provider always responded positively to requests for information and worked alongside them in a supportive manner.

Staff made notifications to external bodies as needed. Information governance systems included confidentiality of patient records. The service complied with the Accessible Information Standard. Staff ensured that patients could obtain information on treatments, local services, patients’ rights, how to complain and so on. The information provided was in a form accessible to the patient group. Staff made information leaflets available in languages spoken by patients. Staff ensured carers, families and commissioners were regularly updated about the patient’s progress.

Patients we spoke to knew how to complain and they told us that they did so mostly informally, and staff did respond to those complaints appropriately. There were also regular house meetings taking place, and complaints were also addressed in this forum. The house seniors were based in each house and had oversight of any concerns or complaints, the area managers also visited on a very regular basis and patients told us this was the case.

Staff we interviewed knew how to support the patient if they wanted to make a complaint.

We observed staff speaking with the patients, they talked about the patients’ care and plans for that day. The patients knew what was happening for that week and were involved with making those plans, including when they had one to one or therapy sessions and when they had activities planned in the community.

There was a complaints policy which was in date and provided relevant guidance to staff to manage complaints. For the 12 months prior to our assessment there had been 6 complaints and 3 compliments about the service.

Patients could easily access the care and treatment they needed. The patients told us they were supported and felt their needs were being supported. They did not raise any concerns about their experiences in respect of equality or discrimination.

Staff could access services when they needed to, including out of normal hours and in an emergency. The area managers and senior managers had an on-call system and all staff we spoke to knew how to access this.

The young people came from different backgrounds and partners expressed no concerns that any of their young people faced discrimination.

There were systems in place such as house meetings which provided the patient with opportunities to raise any issues they encountered in a formal way.

All staff had received an induction and the appropriate training. They could identify where they could access support if a patient had difficulty with translating speech or other communication problems. This was not required at the time of our assessment.

We saw that managers monitored complaints and concerns as part of the senior manager meeting processes.

All the young people we spoke with felt they were treated fairly and equally, and they were actively involved with planning care. No concerns were raised regarding discrimination and staff made every effort to ensure reasonable adjustments were in place to support equity in experience and outcomes.

Young people described that they knew how to raise any concerns that they may have and that they would feel confident in being able to do this.

Staff and managers described how young people would be supported with any spiritual or cultural needs that they may have, which included having access to spiritual materials or being supported to attend places of worship. Staff also described how any dietary needs would be supported for any young people that had specific requirements for cultural or religious reasons. Managers described how young people who had specific communication needs would be supported, using interpreter or translation services. Managers felt assured that young people would be treated equally whilst under the service and that, if they had any concerns about this, that they would raise this with them.

All incidents were recorded and investigated, and the service recorded the outcomes of these incidents. These were used to examine trends, and we saw they were discussed in senior management meetings. There was also a staff survey that recorded staff opinions.

Through meetings with their house staff, the patients told us they discussed the options for their care and were provided with all information they needed and in way they could understand. They felt in control of planning their care and support. They were supported to plan ahead, and they could explain how they were progressing and the plans for their future care.

Managers were in communication with patients’ community staff and commissioners about the future discharge of patients. There had been no delayed discharges in 12 months. The patients had a discharge pathway plan, and we could see from those records that they represented the wishes of the patient, and they were involved in developing those plans.

Every young person had a discharge plan and we could see from those records that they represented the wishes of the young people and they were involved in developing those plans.