Taylor Support Hub

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 provider 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 has remained good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

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.

Feedback from relative’s was consistently exceptional about the kindness people experienced while being supported by staff. A relative said, “I think the staff are wonderful, they are very respectful, we don’t have wider family involved and they have stepped into that role and being that wider support for us. The way they [staff] come and collect my relative, they [staff] are excited to see my relative. One member of staff hadn’t seen my relative for a few weeks and they’d missed my relative. The staff are just wonderful.” A relative said, “We have good relationships with the core team, they are helpful, kind and considerate.” Another relative told us, “My relative is very happy to go [with staff], my relative is excited and happy to go. My relative seems happy and secure with them.”

Staff spoke about people fondly, and clearly knew people well. Staff had a positive attitude to working with people and empowering people. Staff had a person-centred focus and were passionate about supporting people to live their best lives.

Other professionals were complimentary of staff approach and felt people were supported with kindness.

People were supported to partake in a range of activities and events of their choice. A relative told us, “My relative is always doing things they like. If my relative goes on larger residentials [with multiple people attending] then I suggest places my relatives likes going. The staff try and find things my relative likes.” Another relative said, “[Staff member] is an incredible person and bent over backwards to get to know my relative, through [staff member’s] sheer thought and determination and care, they [staff member] and got my relative to do wonderful activities I’d never thought they’d do. The staff are like part of the family. It’s the level of thought and care they have with my relative” Another relative said, “Staff absolutely treat my relative like an individual. They [staff] treat my relative like a young adult. My relative goes to [an activity] and Taylor Support staff fed back the staff at [the activity] were infantilising my relative but we’ve never had concerns with Taylor Support Hub staff.”

A staff member told us of additional training staff receive to ensure they delivered person-centred care; a parent of a person with a learning disability spoke with staff to show what this can mean for people. Staff explained to us how they focused on de-escalation and would avoid having to use physical interventions and information about this was in people’s care plans. Staff could give us examples of what worked to keep a person calm and how they supported them, avoiding an escalation in the person’s need to communicate in a physically aggressive way. A staff member said, “If anyone I support gets anxious, I will follow their care plan and try to de-escalate the situation.”

People had personalised care plans in place to assist staff to get to know people and how to respond in certain situations. We have discussed in other parts of the report that care plans needed more detail in some areas in relation to ensuring appropriate health professional advice is incorporated. However, care plans contained tailored and personalised information about people because relatives had been involved in developing these plans. In some cases, relatives had written the care plans, so it was totally focused on the person and gave excellent insight into people’s likes, dislikes and how people demonstrated their needs. This enabled staff to get to know people better and support them in a more tailored way.

Relatives felt people were supported to be as independent as they could be.

One relative said they thought staff enabled their relative to make choices about foods and they don’t restrict their relative so the person could move around as they wanted to, in a safe way.

Another relative said, “Yes, they [staff] are so supportive in lots of ways. I know they encourage my relative with life skills, such as to putting things in the bin and washing up. My relative will do things for staff they won’t do at home! Its lovely to see my relative make those choices. We know behaviour is a form of communication, my relative comes back happy, so it tells me everything.”

Another relative told us, “The staff wouldn’t make my relative do something they didn’t want to do.” Another relative gave an example of, “Sometimes my relative has come home with their t-shirt back to front, so it means they’ve [staff] let my relative do it [after swimming], or my relative has had wet on them as my relative has enjoyed a drink themselves. I don’t mind this.”

A further example from a relative highlighted the good practice shown by a staff member who supported their family member with their personal care whilst promoting and encouraging their independence.

Staff gave us examples of how they support people with choices. One staff member said, “We will normally buy the basic shopping before we pick the person up and then discuss with them what they want to eat and shop with them to get the extras needed to meet their choices.” Another staff member said, “We try to promote and support people to be independent. We look at what skills a person has and how we can help them to improve it.”

The ethos of the provider was to empower people to lead fulfilled lives. This was threaded through the training. Staff told us they received training, and this was reflected in the feedback we received. However, this was not always reflected in the documentation the provider needed to have in place so they could demonstrate they were following regulations to protect people and demonstrate they were a caring provider.

People were supported by the number of staff they needed and on the rare occasion the provider was unable to fulfil this, the support was cancelled to avoid the person being supported inappropriately. Relatives confirmed this did not happen often. A relative said, “I think the staff are absolutely wonderful with my relative, I have never had any issues with staff, they show an enormous amount of care, eager to meet my relative’s needs.”

Staff confirmed they felt able to effectively support people. One staff member said, “We have enough staff which means people get the right support and we can make a difference.”

Staff felt consistently supported and valued at work, to enable them to support people effectively. One staff member told us, “I feel very supported by management. [The management team] are very approachable and I know if I had any concerns, they would listen to me and take action.” Another staff member said, “I think it is a very appreciative organisation; management always thank us for the work we do.” Another staff member said, “I feel very valued by management, and I know I could approach them with any issues whether it is work related or personal.”

Where staff had raised a concern at work, we reviewed how this was investigated and action taken, where necessary. There was an on-call system in place so that if staff needed support while supporting people, they could contact on call for this. The provider also told us they had a ‘mental health first aider’ to support staff and they ran events to increase awareness.