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Archived: Lotus Care

Althorpe House, Althorpe Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV31 2AU (01926) 316200

Provided and run by:
KAAD Care LTD

Important: This service is now registered at a different address - see new profile
Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

All Inspections

20 May 2014

During a routine inspection

When we visited Blue Ribbon Community Care (Warwickshire), we spoke with the registered manager, the care manager, the care coordinator and two care assistants. Following our visit we gathered evidence of people's experiences by telephoning seven people who used the service, including people's relatives. We also telephoned one more care assistant. Speaking with these people helped answer our five questions; Is the service safe? Is the service effective? Is the service caring? Is the service responsive? Is the service well led?

Below is a summary of what we found. If you want to see the evidence supporting our summary please read our full report.

Is the service safe?

We inspected this service previously on 27 January 2014 and identified improvements were required in several different areas. These included people's consent to care, the safe care and welfare for people, how the service supported it's workers, how the service monitored and assessed the quality of its service and the quality of the service's records. We found the provider had made changes following our previous inspection and improvements had been made in all these areas.

We saw people's care records accurately reflected their care needs. We saw people had risk assessments in place that made sure risks to their health were managed. We found people's care records had been recently reviewed by senior staff.

Is the service effective?

People told us the care they received met their needs. They told us they had been involved in planning the care they received.

We found staff treated people with respect and gained people's consent before they supported them.

Staff we spoke with had a clear understanding of the needs of the people they supported and what they told us was reflected in people's care plans.

We spoke with staff and found they felt supported by their managers and felt able to raise any issues they had.

Is the service caring?

We spoke with seven people who used the service and they were all positive about the staff who supported them. For example people told us: 'They (staff) are very caring', 'They know what they're doing' and 'The staff are brilliant.'

Staff we spoke with were positive about their role as care workers.

Is the service responsive?

We found people were asked for their views about their care and these were acted on. We saw the provider had sent out a quality assurance survey to people who used the service in January 2014. The results we saw from the survey were positive.

People told us they felt comfortable to raise any issues they had about the service. We found issues were responded to by senior staff in a timely way.

We saw incidents and accidents had been responded to and actions had been taken to make improvements following investigations. However we found some incidents were not recorded on the appropriate forms.

People told us the service was flexible and they could contact the care office at short notice and request changes to their care.

People told us care staff noticed when their needs had changed and took appropriate action.

Is the service well led?

We found the service had an effective quality assurance system in place and any identified actions had led to improvements in the service people received.

We found the service had worked towards completing their action plan which identified improvements required to be undertaken to meet the essential standards as set out by the Care Quality Commission and recommendations made by the Local Authority.

We found evidence improvements had been made to the service following investigation of concerns.

27 January 2014

During a routine inspection

When we visited Blue Ribbon Community Care (Warwickshire), we spoke with the provider who was also the registered manager, the care coordinator, the supervisor and three care workers. We read the care records for six people who used the service. We gathered evidence of people's experiences by telephoning 14 people who used the service and the representatives of eight people, following our visit. (People's representatives included family members and friends.) We also telephoned three care workers following our visit.

The registered manager told us that the previous care manager had left in early January 2014 and they were in the process of recruiting a new care manager. A new supervisor began work in January 2014.

Most people we spoke with were positive about the care they received. One person who used the service told us, 'I am happy with the care.' They told us the staff were, 'Excellent.' A person's representative told us, 'I found them impressive.' They told us they had recommended the service to other people.

We found that staff treated people with respect and gained people's verbal consent before they supported them.

We saw that people's care records had not been regularly reviewed and some people had not signed to consent to the care and support they received.

We found that some people had not been initially assessed by the service and these people had no care plans for staff to follow.

We spoke with staff and found that most staff felt supported by their manager and felt able to raise any issues. We found that staff were not receiving frequent one to one meetings with their manager.

We found there was no system for monitoring the quality of the records within the service. Some care records we looked at were not accurate and some records were missing.

The service was reviewed by the local authority during December 2013. The local authority made recommendations to the service to ensure that all customer files were reviewed and care records updated.

28 January 2013

During a routine inspection

We visited Blue Ribbon Community Care on 28 January 2013 and spoke with the registered manager, the manager and the assistant manager. We read the care records for four people who used the service. We telephoned people who used the service after our visit.

We gathered evidence of people's experiences through speaking with two people who used the service and one person's relative. We spoke with two members of staff who supported the people we spoke with about their experiences.

People who used the service told us that the care they or their relative received, matched the care that was discussed with them. They told us that they were involved in planning the care and that reviews were held to reassess their needs.

One person told us that care staff were, 'Very polite, very friendly' and they were, 'Very happy with them.'

We saw that the care plans were person centred and that people and family members had provided information in the care plans. We found that people's care plans reflected their needs.

During our last inspection of this service in July 2011 we made an improvement action due to a minor concern that staff did not always record on medication administration record (MAR) sheets, when medication was administered. During our inspection, we looked at this issue again.

13 September 2012

During a routine inspection

We spoke with three people who were using the service about the care they were receiving and did it meet their expectations. They told us it did and that staff providing care were supportive and understanding of their needs. One person told us, 'I am fully involved and staff explain everything'. Another person told us, 'I am very pleased with all aspects of the care given'.

We asked people if they were kept informed if staff were going to be late getting to their home and they told us that on the occasion when staff may be late they were always informed. People told us that staff generally arrived on time however and were rarely late, adding that staff did not 'rush' their care.

People told us that the manager was approachable and often accompanied staff on care visits, they said this was 'good'.

People we spoke with made particular comments about being asked about their care and involved with the decision making around safe care. One person told us, 'Not being involved was a problem with other agencies we used but this agency listens to us and carers are very supportive'.

People told us they knew how to make a complaint if they were not satisfied with their care and were confident their concerns would be dealt with properly. People told us they felt safe when care was being given and had never felt embarrassed or uncomfortable with staff.

We spoke with three staff about care planning, their training and how the manager checked that they provided care safely to people. The told us that care plans gave them clear guidance about how to care for people safely. They said care plans were easy to read and any risks when giving care, for example when using a mobile hoist to transfer people from a bed to a chair, had been written down in the care plan.

We asked staff about their training and was this sufficient to carry out the tasks expected of them when delivering care. They told us, 'We are trained and supervised well' and 'The manager does spot checks when we are working, this is good'. Staff also told us that they learnt from other professionals such as district nurses and physiotherapists involved with the care of an individual. They told us this can be when new equipment is being introduced or when supporting continence care.