HEALTH and social care teams in East Ayrshire have been praised, despite a report highlighting "low staff morale".
The Care Inspectorate said strengths outweighed weaknesses in key areas of the care at home and housing support service provided by the East Ayrshire health and social care partnership (HSCP) in the southern part of the authority - including the Cumnock area and the Doon Valley.
The report also highlighted that a number of improvements that were set at a previous visit had now been met.
Their newly-published report says that the service's support for people's wellbeing, leadership, staffing, and planning of care and support were 'good', improving on 'adequate' scores given to all of these areas in a report earlier this year.
Inspectors said that that "saw evidence of how the service brought about benefits to people's health and well-being."
The team received feedback from service users and their family members as part of the report.
Comments included: "They have done a grand job. We could not have coped without them they have been brilliant."
Another added: "This lot are much better, the lassies are lovely. At least we know when they're coming."
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However, despite the good feedback, inspectors were told by some staff members that they were not always able to contact managers when they needed to.
The report added: "Managers acknowledged low staff morale had recently impacted on communication.
"There were some examples of plans with good information with clear descriptions of the type and level of support each person requires.
"There were others that had limited information dependent on the level of need or the frequency and type of package of support the person is receiving".
Areas of future improvement were also set out, including: "To improve the quality of information within personal plans, the provider should ensure that they clearly direct staff on how best to meet people’s needs, wishes and preferences.
"The provider must ensure that systems in place to ensure people get medication are safe and effective."
East Ayrshire HSCP team said they were "committed to meeting people’s outcomes through high quality services, provided by a trained, experienced and compassionate workforce".
A response to the recent report added: "In aiming to achieve this, we value the scrutiny provided by the Care Inspectorate.
"We are pleased to see the recognition of the continuous improvement work that is being taken forward within the Care at Home service.
"The positive feedback from supported people is something we would want to celebrate as a service in terms of consistency of support and kind, caring relationships."
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Care bosses added: "The report recognises work that we have done to implement a new medications policy to meet previous requirements and improvements, and the considerable effort in embedding quality assurance arrangements.
"The service wants to continue to improve and looks forward to working with all partners to further develop self-evaluation and more detailed personal plans."
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