Elmcroft Care Home

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 service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last assessment we rated this key question inadequate. 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. The service was in continued breach of legal regulation in relation to person-centred care, as care was not designed, planned and delivered to meet individual needs and preferences.

This service scored 40 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service did not always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity, as further work was required to embed systems and processes to enable staff to do so consistently. For example, staff observations were carried out in a way which did not always respect people’s dignity and preferences for the gender of staff. However, we received feedback staff treated relatives and colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect. A person’s relative told us, “I am always made welcome [by staff], and really feel part of the home.” Another relative said, “[My person] needs a lot of care, and [staff] are very supportive, and I can tell they do really care for [person]. [My person] likes a hug, and I see the care workers are really kind to [person]. [Person] smiles a lot, so I know [person] is happy there. Improvements had also been made to ensure people’s hygiene needs were met, to support their dignity. A person told us, “I can have a shower now when I want one, not straight away but I will get one, this is much better than before, when you asked but never got one.”

The service 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. Staff lacked information to guide them on how to treat people as individuals. This meant care was not consistently personalised, including choice and participation in leisure activities. A person told us, “I hate this place. Nothing’s happened since I’ve been here. Nothing ever happens here.” Memory boxes had still not been completed to show people’s interests and support orientation, despite being identified as left empty at the last 2 inspections. The provider told us they had started work to understand people’s life histories.

The service did not promote people’s independence, so people did not know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. Staff were not yet able to empower people to be as independent as possible or as they choose to be as systems and processes to promote this were not in place. There was still limited flexibility in terms of access to the community, to promote independent engagement with interests. However, the provider had taken some steps to try to engage with wider community groups. Staff could tell us about steps to take to try and offer people some choice over elements of their care, but further work was required to embed this. A staff member told us, “If I had a resident (person) who didn’t want to have personal care I would talk to them reassure them, maybe even change staff member to see if that helps.” The provider told us they had also taken additional steps to increase the variety of leisure activities available to people living at Elmcroft Care Home.

The service did not always listen to or understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. There were enough staff to respond to people’s immediate care needs, including answering nurse call bells. However, although some improvements had been made to documentation, information was still not always accurately recorded on how to support people when expressing distress. This meant staff did not always have all the guidance necessary to anticipate and meet people’s needs quickly and in ways that reduced and mitigated people’s discomfort and distress.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff. However, staff were not yet fully supported and enabled by the systems in place to always deliver person-centred care. The manager was working closely with staff individually to build trust and change the culture to a positive one. This was clear from the calm atmosphere in the service and feedback from staff. A staff member told us, “The last management, I was so scared they would sack me, but now I don’t feel that way at all.” Another staff member told us, “[Management] try as much as they can to make sure we are happy, so we can deliver the best care that we can.”