Martindale Road

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

We identified breaches of Regulation in relation to person-centred care, dignity and respect and staffing. People were not always treated as individuals or given opportunities to make informed choices. People were not always treated with dignity and respect. Staff did not feel well supported.

This service scored 30 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People were not always treated with kindness or respect. A relative we spoke with told us the staff did not interact with people. They commented, ''I sometimes cry when I leave there'' and ''I am shocked by the lack of engagement.'' The relative also went on to explain how they had been told by staff not to visit every day. They said one staff had told them, ''Why do you come so often, that is naughty.'' This showed a lack of respect and understanding for the importance of the relative in the person's life. The relative told us that they had witnessed a member of staff supporting 3 people to eat at once rather than individual staff assigned to each person.

The staff told us they cared about the individual people they supported.

A professional we spoke with told us staff were not good at communicating with people. They told us, ''The staff are good at basic caring needs like washing people, but they do not communicate well.'' They told us they were concerns about how much time people spent in bed during the day.

Staff did not always show kindness or respect when interacting with people. Staff regularly walked into rooms where people were and did not have any meaningful interactions. When they did interact with them, this was task based and limited. For example, a staff member walked up to someone, dropped a soft toy on their lap and then walked away again without any other interaction. Staff did not always explain what they were doing when moving people, for example moving a person's wheelchair from behind.

People were not treated as individuals. There were set routines in the home which staff followed without taking into account people's individual needs or wishes. A relative we spoke with told us, ''They just put [person] in a corner and leave the television on.'' The relative also said, ''[Person] has no exercise and is stuck in [their] wheelchair. They do not take [them] out. They only give bed baths not proper baths or showers. When I visit [person] is usually in bed, sometimes not getting up until 11am and in bed all afternoon.''

The staff were not able to explain how they provided individual support. They were not able to describe people's unique needs or preferences.

People's individual needs were not being met. People spent the majority of their time either in the lounge or bedrooms with the television on and very little engagement from staff. People were not offered meaningful choices.

Care plans included information about some individual needs but the records of care which had been provided only showed how basic care needs had been met. For example, when people were supported with personal care or what they ate. There was little or no information to show how people felt or to reflect on whether care had met their individual needs.

People did not engage in a range of social or leisure activities. A relative confirmed people did not go out of the house on a regular basis or take part in any meaningful activities at home. They said, ''Staff just sit around on their phones.'' We observed staff spending prolonged periods of time looking at handheld devices used for care records (which could be mistaken for phones) and not engaging with people or inputting information into these. The relative explained, ''Basic care is met, nothing beyond that.''

Some staff told us they thought the service would be improved if they were able to engage people with different activities. However, other staff lacked an understanding about how they could provide individual support, choice, or control. Their comments included, ''We are struggling to do things'', ''[People] do not engage with activities so they are not useful'', ''We do not go for walks and there are no drivers to take people out'' and ''[Person] is virtually bedbound, they just stay in their room and watch TV all day.''

Staff did not always offer people meaningful choices. For example, they followed set routines without reflecting on whether these were right for people at that time. For example, people were placed in bedrooms or the lounge with music or the television. They were not given other opportunities. Staff gave verbal choices regarding food or drinks, although they did not explore ways people could respond or make their choices known, they made decisions for people.

Care plans did not always record ways to support people to engage in meaningful and varied activities. Records of care showed that people had not taken part in different activities, including sensory activities.

People's immediate needs were not always noticed or responded to. Staff engagement was generally pre-planned. For example, staff walked into a room with the intention of giving someone a drink, moving them to a different place or sitting near them without interacting. Staff did not do enough to actively engage with people to assess and respond to their immediate needs.

Staff told us they had not had training to communicate well with people or understanding their individual communication needs. Staff also told us they did not know how to respond when 1 person hurt themselves or started shouting. They said they had not had training or guidance to know what to do.

Staff tried different approaches in response to people who shouted out or made a noise. However, these were not always appropriate and did not consider what the person may be trying to communicate. For example, on 1 occasion, staff responded to 1 person making a noise by saying, ''All right, all right'' then ending the interaction. At another time, the staff member called out, ''I am here'' from the other side of the room whilst continuing to look at their handheld device. They did not look up, approach the person, or have any other interaction. Staff response to people making sounds was mostly to try and quieten the person.

Staff told us they did not feel supported with their wellbeing. Some of their comments included, ''I do not feel supported'', ''The stress of work has caused me problems with my health'' and ''I don’t feel comfortable here as there are grudges and no teamwork.'' One member of staff explained they had experienced detrimental comments about their age. The staff described how they had been concerned about speaking up when things went wrong. They told us they had not had guidance or support when they wanted to discuss issues of concern. They said they did not have opportunities to discuss their training needs or career development. One staff member told us, ''Individual meetings are very few and far between, it is just a paper exercise anyway and not for my benefit.'' Another member of staff explained, ''It has been difficult, the manager has not been around to support us, and we are left to do everything without being supported. We get blamed if things are not done.''

The provider had systems for supporting staff, however these had not been operated effectively. Staff had not been given the support they needed for their own wellbeing or to understand about good care. The regional manager had recognised this in an audit of May 2024 and had started to take steps to address this.