Atlas Care Services Ltd Lincolnshire

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated Good. This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

The culture and work ethic of the service had a positive impact on the care people received. There was an open culture and staff were supported by a management team who worked together to provide a good service for the people they supported.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

All the staff we spoke with showed a positive attitude about the service and the work culture among their colleagues. We had comments from staff which included how they saw their roles when supporting people. One staff member said, “(Our job is) the promotion of good care in people's homes so they can live in their own homes longer.” Another staff member said, “We always put people first, the care comes first.” A further member of staff said, “The care in this service is very very good, and the carers seem to really care about the people they support.” This was reflected in the conversations we had with people who gave positive feedback about the staff who came to their houses to support them.

The feedback we received from care staff about the service’s field supervisors, care coordinators and managers in post was positive. Staff told us they felt they could go to both their line managers and senior managers at the service and they would be listened to, whether it was if they had any issues of concern about the people they supported or personal concerns.

There was evidence to show staff were well supported. The training matrix and staff competency matrix showed staff had received regular training for their role, regular spot checks of their competency, supervision and appraisals. Staff told us they found their training, supervisions and support useful, they were able to bring up any issues or discuss any further training they might need with managers. One member of staff said, “There is a good work ethic at the service. it’s a nice place to work.”

There was evidence to show staff were able to speak up and have their views heard. There were regular staff meetings. One staff member said, “The meetings always get advertised for staff to attend and surveys are sent out to us to get staff feedback. Staff felt they were listened to and any concerns they raise or ideas they had to improve care were acted upon. One staff member told us they would call the office and report concerns. They had done this once and the managers took it seriously. Another staff member said, “Yes things are listened to. When I was working as a carer (they were now a field supervisor) there was one client who didn’t have a lot of confidence and I asked [Registered manager] to make sure there was a consistent carer in place for the client so they would feel more confident.” They went on to say this had been arranged and had made a difference to the way the person felt about receiving their care.

The provider worked in a way to promote equality, diversity and inclusion among their workforce. Their polices relating to recruitment and equality and diversity were developed using the principles of relevant regulation and legislation. This included the Equality Act 2010, and the human rights act 1994. As mentioned elsewhere in this report staff feedback about how they were treated by the registered manager and provider was positive. One member of staff told us the managers were flexible with staff to support home commitments. They were able to give an example of how they were supported when a member of their family became ill and this impacted on their work pattern, they told us they were well supported.

The registered manager told us there had been work on improving their governance processes at the service. There had been a new role introduced at the service of a compliance officer. This was to support the registered manager in their role and to improve consistency when reviewing the care they provided. Their job was to audit areas such as communication, medicines, call logs and care plans. We reviewed the communication audits that had been completed. The audit had highlighted a trend in the quality of recording in care notes. We saw this had resulted in the issues being discussed with staff on an individual basis at one to one or supervisions and staff meetings. From this they had been able to highlight where extra training for staff was required.

The audits also showed when staff were consistently staying for shorter times on calls (with the person’s permission). The registered manager told us this was often if a person was new to the service and the level of need did not match the number of calls they had been given. The registered manager fed this information back to local authority via their regular meetings so people’s packages could be adjusted.

The managers worked with a range of health professionals to improve people’s care and had recently joined the multidisciplinary neighbourhood team which is a group of health professionals including district nurses, social workers and GP’s. The group discuss particular cases and how they can collectively support people. The operational manager told us this team value the service’s input as from their systems the service can show an up-to-date view how things are going for people in relation to their care.

As mentioned elsewhere in this report the registered manager and operational manager work closely together and with the local authority to improve their service with projects such as the trusted assessor initiative.