High Lea House

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

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the provider involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 55 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity.

People gave us positive feedback about the carers. One person said, “The staff are lovely, they don’t rush me and treat me with respect.”

Despite this we found the condition of the environment did not fully demonstrate the provider respected people privacy and dignity. For example, we found the decoration in some people’s bedrooms was in poor condition. One person was unable to close the door to their ensuite toilet due to a frame fitted around the toilet blocking the door. When we shared this with the provider and manager, they took immediate action to address the concerns.

People could not be assured that the provider would consider their dignity and privacy when making decision about their care and support. Their systems failed to ensure individual rights to privacy were maintained.

Throughout our visit we observed carers interact with people with kindness and respect. For example, we observed carers knocking on people’s doors before entering

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not always take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Assessments and care plans did not always contain the information necessary to ensure an approach that treated people as individuals. There was a lack of a person-centred approach with decisions made in isolation without evidence of the input of the individuals that the decisions concerned. There was a lack of systems and oversight to ensure people received care which respected them as individuals.

The manager told us she had commenced a full review of care plans to ensure a person centred approach was taken and would be consulting with people to ensure their voices was heard in the plans.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Some aspects for people’s care did not demonstrate an approach of supporting people with independence, choice and control. The provider was unable to demonstrate where people had been supported to make choices.

People care plans and assessments did not contain personalised information and lacked detail on the likes and dislikes of people. There was no clear system of review and no evidence of the involvement of people in these assessments. There were no processes to support the provider in ensuring that people's rights to make their own decisions and choices (even if they did not align with their own values and choices) would be made.

Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

People told us that carers responded to their immediate needs promptly. One person said, ““I have a call bell in my room, and I don’t have to wait long.”

During our visits we observed staff responding promptly to people if they made requests

We asked the provider whether the response to call bells was monitored as staffing levels were lower during the evening and at night. They confirmed their current system did not have the facility to produce reports and they did not monitor it in other ways. They advised us that a new call bell system was about to be installed which had these facilities and would commence monitoring then.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Records reviewed, showed an absence of staff supervision records, staff meeting records and staff surveys. This demonstrated staff did not receive regular opportunities to provide feedback or gain support.

We discussed this with the provider who told us that due to personal circumstances she had relied on the previous registered manager to carry out staff supervisions and had not been able to provide oversight to ensure these were done. Since our visit a staff survey has been carried out and a program of supervisions for staff commenced.