Care Outlook (Crawley)

People's experience of using this service: Care Outlook (Brighton and Hove) provides a service to people living in the areas of Brighton and Hove and other parts of Sussex. On the whole, people receiving care in Brighton and Hove were happy with their care. However, people we spoke with living in the mid-Sussex areas were not happy with the care they received. They felt they were treated with kindness by their care workers and they felt safe, however, they did not feel the care received met their needs and preferences. People's care visits were often late or early and on occasion cut short. Systems for scheduling care visits did not reflect people's assessed needs or preferences and did not provide continuity of care.

Systems were in place for the recording of incidents and accidents. However, we could not see evidence that incidents and accidents were followed up, monitored and analysed over time to recognise any emerging trends and themes, or to identify how improvements to the service could be made.

The provider had systems of quality assurance to measure and monitor the standard of the service and drive improvement. However, these systems had not ensured the areas of improvement identified at this inspection had been acted upon and prevented.

People's feedback was mixed in respect to feeling the service was well managed. They did not feel routinely involved in their care, or feel their concerns and issues were acted upon.

The provider was aware of the issues we identified at this inspection and had started to implement improvements.

People's medicines were managed appropriately and staff followed infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures to keep people safe. Staff told us they felt supported in their roles and said they liked working at the service.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection The last rating for this service was Good (published 18 October 2017).