Bluebird Care (Eastbourne & Wealden)

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 service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last inspection we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 70 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People were treated with kindness, compassion and dignity. Both people and their relatives spoke highly of staff and the caring way in which they supported them. One relative told us, “When [person] was unable to look after himself anymore after a fall, I chose Bluebird at random and was very nervous about the care he would receive. I couldn’t be happier with the level of service and how they go above and beyond to make sure that [person] is well cared for. They are always friendly and smiley.”

Staff treated people with kindness and spoke fondly of those people they supported. Staff were able to demonstrate a good understanding of what it meant to treat people with dignity to ensure they provided kind and compassionate care.

External professionals told us that staff treated people with kindness and did their best to ensure that care needs were met.

People told us that staff knew them well and treated them as individuals. Relatives also spoke positively about staff, one told us, “[Person] gets the same carers all the time which is necessary. She gets to know them which if a really big help and we don’t have to keep telling them about [person’s] needs. Another said, “Lots of them know [person] well and always talk kindly and positively about him.”

Staff knew people well and told us they spent time getting to know what their needs and preferences were. One staff member told us, “Yes, I do have regular clients that I know well.” Another added, “All the people I go to are regular clients. When they are your regular clients, you observe the changes or needs and behaviours. If I see any changes then I report to the office and amend support as needed.”

Improvements had been made to the person-centred element of people’s care plans. They contained personalised information such as likes, dislikes and life histories to enable staff to engage with people and treat them as individuals.

People were supported to maintain independence, choice and control. People spoke of staff supporting them to complete as many tasks as they were able to do themselves but could offer help when needed. One relative told us, “[Person] has dementia, he can make decisions in the moment and staff help him do this. His short-term memory is very poor otherwise he is still very much himself. He can say what he wants and can express an opinion about anything.”

Staff encouraged people to be as independent as possible, where it was safe to do so. Staff told us that they were able to get to know people and this included what they could do safely for themselves. They then aided this without doing onto people to ensure independence was maintained.

Processes were in place to ensure people had choice and control regarding their care, and to enable independence to be encouraged. Some people had very specific needs in terms of what they would consent to or not and these had been detailed in care plans.

People were supported by staff who knew them well. Staff worked as flexibly as they could to ensure needs were met. One person told us, “We all feel they have really helped us through a difficult situation and very fluid situation which can go up and down very quickly. We couldn’t do without them they are absolutely marvellous.”

Staff were responsive to people’s needs when providing care, however, documentation was not always kept up to date. Staff spoke of confidence in being able to ascertain what people needed by communicating with them regularly.

Feedback from staff regarding wellbeing was mixed. Whilst staff felt supported, they also advised that they did not always receive feedback following any spot checks. The spot checks also took place in people’s own homes therefore it could be difficult for staff to be open about any concerns they had. However, one staff member did report, “They really care about their staff and want us to be happy at the workplace That is one of the reasons why I would stay at Bluebird.”

The systems in place to support staff well-being were not always robust. There was no schedule or oversight of spot checks or supervision to ensure staff received this regularly. Staff meetings did take place however the minutes we saw showed them as agendas only and no real opportunity for staff to discuss any concerns or ideas. Staff did say they would be confident to contact the office to raise any concerns, but often had to chase matters to ensure they were followed up.