Crossroads Home Care Quality Standards

Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire aims to provide the very best service to home carers, the people they care for and those people with care needs that live alone. We approach the task in a number of qualitative ways:

Thorough selective recruitment procedures, every potential new member of staff has to provide two referees, undertake a face to face interview, complete a written test, and all new staff being offered a position are then subject to an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check and Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) screening.

Once selected and offered a position with Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire, we then provide our new recruits with long-term ongoing support as follows:

• Extensive induction programme, mentor shadowing followed by a full assessment before allowing new Care Support Workers to carry out any home care services
• Extensive training programme with ongoing refresher courses to ensure all staff retain, maintain and develop their caring skills 
• Twice yearly visits to all homecare service users by senior members of staff to check on the quality and appropriateness of the home care services being provided. These visits enable us to pick up on any problems or concerns and resolve them quickly and efficiently 
• Annual questionnaires to enable our home care service users to tell us "how it is" for them. The results of the questionnaires are published at our Annual General Meeting and are also used to plan further training and development programs 
• Regular one to one staff supervision, mentoring and annual appraisals 
• Regular staff meetings to discuss general topics around homecare and good care services practice 
• Weekly newsletters to ensure all staff are up to date with social care news and what's going on at Crossroads Care

Crossroads Home Care Quality Recognition

As a testament to these measures, Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire achieved an 'Investors in People Award' and Level 3 (maximum) in the 'Crossroads Care Quality Evaluation' standard (Croquet) based on 'Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations' (PQASSO).

The Coventry Crossroads office also achieved '3 Stars - Excellent' in our most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) key inspection report and both the Rugby and Warwick Crossroads offices have '2 Stars - Good' ratings and await their next inspection when they hope to join Coventry with 3 Stars. Please see an extract from the report below!

Our most recent success was the nomination by Coventry City Council for the 'Coventry & Warwickshire's Partnership for Care' award when we were awarded the 'This Time its Personal' organisation award for 2009. During the nomination we were described as "forward thinking, flexible, co-operative and open minded" by the Commissioning Team of Coventry City Council.

Coventry Crossroads CQC Key Inspection Report

The following is an extract from Coventry Crossroads recent Care Quality Commission 'Key Inspection Report':

"The outcomes for people who use Coventry Crossroads have been assessed as good to excellent.

There is an effective assessment process that enables the agency to offer services tailored to meet people's individual needs. People who use the agency receive a flexible, consistent service by regular carers who have the skills to meet their needs.

There is a diverse range of support available from the agency, they provide a caring for carers' service, this is for people who look after family members so they can have time away from the home, by offering a sitting service or personal care. They offer personal care and support to people directly referred to the service, and they also support people to access day opportunities.

There is a consistent care planning process and the support and personal care people receive is based on their individual needs. Plans are updated and reviewed as needs change to ensure staff have the correct information about support needs.

Crossroads has very clear guidelines relating to assistance and administration of medication. Staff complete medication training and have their competency assessed before assisting with medication, to ensure they administer medication in a safe way.

People who use the service can be sure that staff working for the agency have been properly checked before they are employed. There is an extensive training programme in place to ensure staff have the skills and knowledge to support people safely. All staff complete mandatory training which is the training we require before staff work with people, and also further training in relation to specific conditions including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Autism, challenging behaviour and attention deficit disorders ADHD.

The agency is exceptionally well managed and there is a clear management structure in place. The agency has been commended and nominated for awards by both Crossroads quality assurance team and Coventry City Council, through Partnerships with Care in recognition for the work they do.

Crossroads has an effective quality assurance system that makes sure people who use the service are regularly consulted about the service they receive, and there are very good monitoring systems in place to make sure staff work in line with policies and procedures."

Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire Quality Commitment

Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire continues to be committed to providing quality home care services to people with care needs and quality respite care services to home carers. Our ethos is to help and support those in need of homecare services in any way we possibly can with an approach that is both professional and sympathetic whilst at all times maintaining the dignity and self-respect of our customers. Quality is the key to everything we do and everything we stand for so please rest assured you're in safe hands at Crossroads Care Coventry & Warwickshire.

"It's our mission to help and support Home Carers and provide Home Care Services
to the people they care for, so please Contact Us for further information"