Mears Care Limited Project Pilot Summary Report
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Between October – December 2015, Healthwatch Torbay conducted a service review on Mears Care Limited, which provides home care services. They were asked by Mears to interview 10 clients - who were selected by Mears - in the client’s home without any member of Mears staff present. The clients identified by Mears were those who had already raised concerns with the provider and wanted to work collaboratively to improve the quality of care provided by Mears. Consent was only obtained from 6 clients in total.
The report identified the following:
On the whole clients felt that the care provided was adequate with main concern areas being around reliability e.g. when a carer doesn’t turn up or stay for the required time; clients did not feel involved with the care they received; timing concerns were raised about the time for medication and for family carers who have other daily demands on their time; some clients felt staff were rude, ignorant or not honest and did not understand the impact of the changes to care being delivered at short notice to the client and family member’s daily life.
One client said, ‘I find the office staff to be quite rude at times, seem to never pass on messages, and change my carers around without informing me, and I never speak to the same person’
The report recommended the following:
- Mears to review the induction training of office staff to include active listening, shadowing of carers and ensure the training delivered is relevant to the individual’s role.
- Mears to ensure all communication is person-centred rather than organisation-centred
- Improve communication between the office staff and clients regarding changes to their rota in a timely manner
- To put in place procedures to improve staff moral
- To review the rota more realistic timings for each visit with clients and ensure the time is appropriate to deliver the care required
- To support clients by helping them access information and services delivered within the community
- To have an independent agency regularly completes quality assurance checks by speaking directly with clients
In response, Mears thanked the people who shared their experiences, and confirmed that a development plan will be put in place to support the Outcome Based Working pilot which will commence in April 2016 and address the issues raised.