Care Outlook Ltd

Rubbish agency they were meant to phone me for a interview never did probably because they haven't got any jobs or there jobs are fake avoid
Jul 11th, 2022

Mar 25th, 2019

Feb 15th, 2019

Dec 8th, 2018

Avoid using this agency even if you were desperate. Manager and some of the long-term senior office staff was highly unprofessional, extremely arrogant and with absolutely no communication and customer service skills. Telling untruth, deliberate misleading of clients and third parties, lack of transparency and no sense of accountability was as serious as it could get. They refused to deal with a formal complaint three years ago, nor they acknowledged it. There were many serious issues with care they provided as well. It was because they were not adhering to the minimum quality care standards. Also there was a highly unpredictable rota of many irregular carers some of whom lacked the essential care support skills or soft people skills. There was a minimum choice to choose from even for as little as a week. Some carers were competent and kind but these were very few. They were usually disliked by the office staff who treated them in horrendous manner and eventually they were forced to find a different rewarding work. Most of the carers entered the room with a client without any knocking and without introducing themselves, nor showing their ID card. They were arriving at different times to what was agreed in the first place. It happened twice they did not come at all without any prior notice from the agency; the client was left feeling very unwell in bed for half of the day without the agency's communication nor any kind of assistance. Most of the carers did not wash their hands on arrival unless asked; one older carer refused to do so telling the client that she was not to be told what to do. Some carers were not keeping their personal hygiene and arrived with strong bodily odour. The folder of clients containing daily records of care was of very poor standard. Some information was completely false or unsatisfactory. Most of the carers contributing to the records were not able to write a single grammatically correct sentence. If foreign African speakers, their English language was of very poor standard. Few barely understood what was being said to them, nor they were able to follow instructions because of it. Some of these carers' strong African accent made it almost impossible to be understood, nor it was comprehensible what they were saying. However, they always nodded with a blank stare to everything as if they understood. I wondered at times how they got on agency's books with this level of English to work with most vulnerable people in society. Some had no skills to do the job including cooking and heating up meals on the kitchen hob. They admitted they did not cook for themselves either and ate only take-ways or McDonald's. They managed to burn the meal even when told to stir it for a minute or two. Some did not wash the cutlery properly and did not clean after themselves as necessary; found a greasy spoon in a clean drawer and much of expensive pasta spilled all over the floor next to the cooker. Some carers had the attitude and made the client feel as if the client was invisible. Sometimes they brought their friend over with them and talked to them in different language the whole time without any engagement with the client. Sometimes they answered personal calls and spent much time talking on the phone or played the games on the phone instead of adequate engagement with a client. The client did not feel comfortable with approach of a few carers and felt intimidated by them. In fact these carers had high impact on how the client felt afterwards - very sad for the rest of the day admitting only later on that some visits by local care agency's carers caused much anxiety and upset feelings. The client either felt as not important or that the carer did not want to be there. The overall experience of using this care agency was highly stressful and most disappointing. Definitely do not recommend. Avoid at all cost.
Jun 11th, 2020