Orchard Views Residential Home

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Inadequate. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement. This meant the management and leadership was inconsistent. Leaders and the culture they created did not always support the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.

The provider was in breach of legal regulation in relation to the governance of the service.

This service scored 50 (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 have a clear shared vision, strategy and culture which was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, and engagement. They did not always understand the challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

A new manager was in place at the service and was working to improve the culture within the service. The provider told us they were committed to recruiting the right staff and creating a culture which aligned with their visions for the service. This required embedding into practice at the time of our assessment. Staff told us the team now worked better together, communication had improved and the culture amongst the team had improved. Comments included, “The new manager is getting established, they are implementing lots of stuff. Communication is much better between the team, everyone gets on now and works well as a team” , “Everything is different, it is better, things are going a lot better. Atmosphere is nicer, the team is much better, we have some lovely staff.” People were aware of the changes taking place, such as refurbishments and the manager had recently held a meeting with people and their relatives to introduce themselves and keep them informed of the changes taking place. Daily handovers were in place, whilst people's needs were communicated, these could be further improved to ensure handovers also covered other topics relating to the day to day running of the service, such as building maintenance, activities and staffing.

The new manager was aware of the outstanding actions which were required at the service and had commenced working through the ongoing action plan. Since our last assessments some improvements were made, however several improvements were still required. Staff were positive about the new manager and told us they had confidence in them. One staff member said, “Manager is lovely, I think they are going to change this place around. They have told staff to approach them with ideas.” The manager told us their plans to implement new systems and process, which would take time to embed. The provider visited the service regularly, however this required recording to evidence what had been monitored and actioned through these visits. A person said, “The owners are lovely and come and speak to me.”

The provider fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard. People told us they could speak to the provider, manager and staff and they felt listened to. Staff told us they could now raise concerns and suggestions, and these would be listened to. There were clear whistle blowing procedures in place. Team meetings had recently been held and were planned throughout the year.

All staff were currently working towards their professional development, however staff supervisions and appraisals were not up to date, this required improvements to ensure staff could raise suggestions and performance could be managed. There were equality and diversity policies and procedures in place. Staff told us they were now treated fairly and no one said they had been subject to discrimination.

The provider did not have clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They did not act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, or share this securely with others when appropriate.

Improvements were required to ensure governance systems were effective in identifying concerns and sustaining the improvements made. Where there were systems and processes in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided these were ineffective as they had not picked up on the issues identified at this assessment. Infection control and records audits were not in place and audits relating to health and safety, and accidents and incidents were not undertaken regularly.

The provider did not always understand their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services worked seamlessly for people. They did not always share information and learning with partners or collaborate for improvement.

People and staff told us the service was improving. People told us they liked living at the service and staff were kind to them. One person said, “All the staff are good, they come and sit and have a chat.” Staff told us the service was heading in the right direction and they felt happy at work. Improvements were required to ensure people had access to the community and meaningful activities. People lacked community engagement, and we observed people spending long periods of time in their rooms. This may be attributed to a lack of social stimulation. One person said, “We used to do (activities) but not so much now.” The manager told us they had plans to improve activities for people.

The provider did not always focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They did not always encourage creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They did not always actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research.

Some refurbishments were taking place at the time of our assessment, to improve people's living space. Ongoing refurbishments were planned for the future. Some people told us they preferred having a bath as opposed to a shower, due to ongoing refurbishments people had access to shower facilities only, new bathing facilities were planned for the future. Feedback surveys were in place for people and staff to provide their views about the service. Due to the ongoing changes at the service, further surveys would be beneficial to gain peoples current views. Following our last assessment the provider was working through an ongoing action plan. Improvements were required to ensure all actions could be met and monitoring of improvements was in place, to enable these to be sustained. The provider was utilising an external consultancy service, to support them to identify concerns and make improvements.