Quality Standards

HOME CARE QUALITY STANDARDS

Crossroads Caring for Carers (Worcestershire) aims to provide the very best service to family based 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 submit a written application, provide two referees, undertake a face to face interview and all new staff being offered a position are then subject to an enhanced DBS check (previously CRB), Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) screening and completion of a health questionnaire.

Once selected and offered a position with Crossroads Caring for Carers (Worcestershire), we then provide our new recruits with long-term ongoing support as follows:

•   Extensive induction programme, mentor shadowing before allowing new Care Support staff 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 (more frequently if necessary) to all home care 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 presented to our Board of Trustees and are also used to plan further training and development programmes.
•   Regular one to one staff supervision and annual appraisals.
•   Regular staff meetings to discuss general topics around home care and good practice.
•   Regular newsletters to ensure all staff are up to date with social care news and what's going on at Crossroads.