Home Instead North Norfolk

The genuinely caring, nurturing, and positive culture evident at all levels within the service had resulted in people receiving care that met their needs in an exceptionally individualised, respectful, and dignified manner. The focus was on empowering people who used the service to remain in control of the care they received by supporting their confidence, independence, and quality of life in whichever way safely and effectively met their needs, routines, wishes, and preferences. Staff at all levels worked to this ethos and clearly understood their role was to deliver care and support in a way that was vitally important to people and met their individualised outcomes. This meant care was truly holistic, extraordinarily flexible in meeting people’s changing needs and outcomes, and delivered in collaboration with them and those important to them. The service not only considered the needs of the people who used the service, but those of any wider family members or people that were significant to them. This encompassing approach had resulted in outstanding outcomes for people regarding their quality of life, health, and wellbeing. What contributed to the consistently high-quality care people received and their successful outcomes, was the care and time staff took initially to understand people, their wishes, goals, aspirations, values, and desired outcomes. By fully understanding people and what they wished to achieve from receiving the service, the provider was able to carefully match appropriate staff to meet those needs and outcomes; this had been instrumental in ensuring real person-centred care was always delivered. Furthermore, the provider had invested heavily in their workforce meaning they had happy, skilled, and confident staff who felt valued and cared for which, in turn, benefitted the people who used the service. For example, not only did staff receive regular formal support, but they also experienced thoughtful, considerate, and informal gestures of kindness such as individualised presents on special occasions, regular welfare checks for professional and personal challenges, and opportunities to build relationships with their colleagues. However, it was the enveloping warm culture that the management team nurtured that staff told us they valued most. This meant staff felt able to bring their whole selves to work and deliver their role in an open, caring, and person-centred manner knowing they had the full support from their managers. We saw examples of where the provider had delivered exceptional and individualised support to their staff.

The provider also understood the importance of investing in their talented and knowledgeable management team as well as governance systems, both of which had contributed to the outstanding success of the service. Business consultants had been employed to help guide and nurture the service and management team, and artificial intelligence systems (a branch of computer science that develops systems capable of performing tasks requiring human-like intelligence) had been employed to help monitor the service, keep people safe, and drive improvement. All of which had resulted in robust oversight of the service, an incredibly responsive and proactive approach, business sustainability, and staff that first and foremost, understood the human and often sensitive aspect of the service they were providing.