Glowing report for Helmsdale based care at home service
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A RELATIVELY new care at home service operating in Sutherland has received a glowing Care Inspectorate report.
Helmsdale based Sutherland Home Care was judged to offer good and very good care.
Inspectors said: “Overall we evaluated this service as operating at a good level. There were a number of important strengths and only some areas for improvements.
“The strengths when taken together clearly outweighed the areas to improve in.”
Registered since 2020, Sutherland Home Care covers East Sutherland. It was established by Connecting Communities, a support and activities group for older people.
On offer are tailored support packages which can include not just personal care but also help around the house, with meal preparation or medication management and medical appointments.
The inspection took place on July 27 and 28 at short-notice.
An inspector spoke with two people using the service, three family members, five staff and also management.
They also observed “practice and daily life”, reviewed documents and spoke with visiting professionals.
The inspector found a “flexible” service which worked well with other agencies to ensure good outcomes for people and had a clear vision for providing high quality person centred care and support.
Users were found to be happy with their support and staff had a “warm, friendly and respectful manner”.
Leadership was good with the manager “approachable” and keen to “ensure everything went well for people’s care and support”. The service communicated well.
The Care Inspectorate uses a six point sale where one is unsatisfactory and six is excellent.
The “compassion, dignity and respect” experienced by people was judged to be very good (five); while the support of their wellbeing was good (four).
However, there were a couple of areas the inspector felt it would benefit the service to work on.
It was recommended that the steps should be taken to make sure that its “quality assurance” was robust in order to monitor the quality of care and to support and promote improvement.
It was also suggested that the service should make sure its staff were suitably supported and had opportunities to develop their knowledge and practice.
