Last year we opened our office in Clarkston, following success from our Edinburgh office in 2008. Over the past 6 months, we have been working hard to get an excellent team in place to deliver premium home care across Glasgow South.
Like any home care provider, you must register with the Care Inspector to ensure that you can be regulated. It’s important that every provider follows a base standard of care and is regularly inspected to ensure that this standard remains.
We received our first inspector on the 14th of February 2014 since becoming registered and we couldn’t be prouder with the results.
We are inspected on the below themes, and these are some of the things that the Care Inspector logged in their report:
Quality Theme 1: Quality of Care and Support
Award – Excellent
Bluebird Care Glasgow South provide a premium home care and always put their customers first. They understand that not one plan suits all, so care plans are tailored to suit each person’s needs. For example:
- A customer requested documents in a large print for easier reading, this was done, and all documents were resent to the customer.
- A customer did not want staff to wear a uniform when accompanying them outside, this was honoured.
- The team made sure to call the customer by the names or titles they wished to be identified by
Quality Theme 2: Quality of Staffing
Award – Excellent
- I like the worker that comes to mum and mum always looking forward to them coming
- Staff are knowledgeable, caring and kind
- Staff are of a very high calibre
Quality Theme 3: We ensure that service users' health and wellbeing needs are met
Award – Excellent
- Each customer had their individual support plan. We saw a range of ways by which the service demonstrated that peoples' needs were being met. Their needs, wishes, likes and dislikes as well as any social, dietary, cultural or religious preferences were recorded within the support plans.
- The support plans that we looked at followed a standard format and were easy to follow. Assessed needs were monitored and reviewed on a continuous basis to ensure that needs were met all the time.
- Contact details of other health professionals involved in the individual's continuing care were available within the personal files. The service had good links with other health agencies.
- The support plans detailed what duties staff were expected to carry out, from the time of their arrival at the customer's door.
- The medication profiles that we saw had good detail in them. They identified any allergies an individual had. They also outlined any support needs a customer had with managing and taking their medication.
- While respecting individual's choice, staff promoted healthy eating when supporting people with food purchases or menu choices.
- People were supported to attend annual health checks as they required.
Quality Theme 4: Quality of Management and Leadership
Award - Excellent
The service had systems in place to assure its own quality. These included:
- Bi-Annual Customer Survey to give customers the opportunity to say what they thought about the service.
- Six Monthly Customer Reviews where customers were visited at their homes by supervisors, manager, or directors to review the service that was being provided.
- Quality monitoring of care plans.
- A complaint's procedure with clearly defined timescales by which the service must respond.
- Spot checks by managers to ensure staff carried out their duties to standard.
- Regular staff meetings where staff meet to share knowledge and good practice. The company had its own external quality assurance manager.
The inspector commented on the passion and motivation she encountered during her visit and loved our 'Leadership' ethos.
