Archived: Guinness Care Gloucester

Guinness Care Gloucester provides personal care support and practical assistance to people who live in self-contained flats as part of two Extra Care Housing Schemes called Marina Court and St Catherines Court.

At the time of the inspection 47 people received personal care support. Some people who use the service are independent and require little or no support from the service. Guinness Care also funded and operated an emergency call bell system in both schemes. This meant they responded to emergency situations for any person living at either scheme regardless of whether they received personal care support or not.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only regulates the regulated activity of personal care; this inspection report only relates to the provision of personal care.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People told us they were comfortable and happy when being supported by care staff employed by Guinness Care.

• People spoke positively about the relationships they had formed with care staff and enjoyed the conversations they had with them.

• People received their care as planned. The service was using agency staff whilst they recruited additional permanent staff to ensure people received their calls as planned. The manager and staff told us the amount of agency staff had reduced and agency staff had been block booked to aid consistency.

• People spoke positively about how staff responded to their life line (emergency call bell system). They told us staff came quickly and treated them with compassion.

• Care staff supported people with their changing healthcare needs and provided people with additional support when required.

• Staff told us they had the training and support they required. Staff spoke positively about recent changes within the organisation, including the recruitment of the new manager. Staff told us the service was constantly improving.

• People were protected from the risk of abuse and harm as staff followed clear processes regarding safeguarding, the management or people’s prescribed medicines and where necessary their financial records.

• The manager had a clear vision for the service and was working with local authority commissioners and the landlords of both schemes to improve the quality of service people received. The manager was also working with healthcare professionals to improve knowledge in relation to the service provided at Extra Care Sheltered Housing schemes.

• Scheme care co-ordinators, the manager and provider had clear systems to monitor and drive improvements throughout the service. A development plan was in place to inform and track these improvements. This included a new care planning and monitoring system.

The service met the characteristics of Good overall. For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection:

This was the first time the service has been inspected under their current registrations.

Why we inspected:

We inspected this service as part of our ongoing Adult Social Care inspection programme.

Follow up:

We will meet with the provider, landlord for both schemes and local authority commissioners to gain a better understanding of the joint working arrangements for people living in local Extra Care Housing Schemes. We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme.