St Anne's Community Services - York DCA

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

Staff were kind and caring, and people were comfortable and settled in the presence of staff. Staff offered people choice about day-to-day decisions. Staff understood people’s immediate needs and how to recognise these. Staff were knowledgeable, responsive and attentive to people. Staff spoke positively about morale and were supported by leaders. Systems were in place to support staff wellbeing. We identified a continued breach of regulation in relation to person-centred care. People’s individual needs and likes and dislikes were considered, but these needed to be explored further. Personalised and meaningful goals, aims and aspirations were not always in place and there was a lack of robust commitment to increasing people’s life skills and independence. Plans were in place to involve people more in their support plans by creating audio versions of people’s plans. Plans were in place to create a more suitable sensory environment. These plans had not been implemented at the time we visited the service. Some improvements had been made but these needed to be explored further and then become embedded within the culture and everyday practice of the service.

This service scored 65 (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 comfortable and settled in the presence of staff. Relatives spoke positively about the management and staff team and told us their loved ones were happy.

Staff spoke about their desire to provide good care so that people using the service were safe and happy. Staff spoke warmly about the people they supported and their roles. One staff member told us, “We (staff) all have the common goal of wanting to make sure people are well cared for.”

Professionals did not raise any concerns about the caring nature of staff.

Staff were kind and caring. We observed positive and warm interactions.

People’s individual needs and likes and dislikes were considered, but these needed to be explored further. Personalised and meaningful goals, aims and aspirations were not always in place and there was a lack of robust commitment to increasing people’s individual skills.

Staff and leaders knew about people’s likes and dislikes, but these had not been fully explored or considered. Staff told us this was an ongoing piece of work and that they were continuing to find activities and interests that people enjoyed doing.

Professionals fed back that progress had been slow in creating person-centred plans which was, in part, due to frequent changes in management.

Staff supported people in a way which met their individual needs so as to ensure support was well received and did not cause distress. However, further work was required to enhance people’s quality of life, including meaningful goals and aims and finding out about people’s aspirations and what is important to them. Further work was needed to create a sensory environment which met people’s individual needs.

Plans were in place to involve people more in their support plans by creating audio versions of people’s plans. Plans were in place to create a more suitable sensory environment. These plans had not been implemented at the time we visited the service. Some improvements had been made but these needed to be explored further and then become embedded within the culture and everyday practice of the service.

People were supported to see their relatives whenever they wanted to and were given choice about day-to-day decisions. However, more work was needed to create meaningful goals and aims with people, with a view to increasing independence and life skills.

Staff spoke about trying to encourage people’s independence. However, staff didn’t know about people’s long-term goals or strategies for promoting skills development. There was some inconsistency within the staff team around encouraging independence and the commitment to this.

People were given choice. People chose what they wanted to do, and staff provided people with options. However, we did not observe any evidence of a robust systematic approach to involving people in daily living tasks around the home.

Staff knew to offer choice for day-to-day decisions. However more work was required around establishing meaningful goals and aims with people themselves, to work towards greater independence and gaining life skills.

People were supported by a staff team that understood their immediate needs and how to recognise these.

Staff told us they were confident in supporting people and recognising their needs. Staff comments included, “I feel confident that I am able to support [person] and [person] is getting to know me” and, “[Person's] self-harm has dramatically dropped due to how they are supported now. Quite a stark change. [Person] now feels safe and confident.”

People’s immediate needs were met. Staff were knowledgeable, responsive and attentive to people. Staff had appropriate guidance to support people within person-centred Positive Behaviour Support plans.

Staff spoke positively about morale and support provided by leaders. Comments included, “There is always someone to help you, you just have to ask, I am well supported” and, “Management appreciate you, they praise you when you do a good job, thanking you for your contribution.”

Systems were in place to support staff wellbeing. There was a new management team in post and staff spoke positively about the impact of this new team. Management had an open-door policy and held staff meetings where staff were encouraged to speak up and express their own ideas.