Cherrywood 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 service 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 remained good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect, and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 70 (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 always treated people with kindness and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff worked with other organisations and actively took on advice to provide the best care for the people they support. People received support tailored to their individual needs by staff who knew them well. A relative said, “Yes, absolutely the staff are caring and kind.”

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. Staff knew people well and told us how people liked to be supported. People’s bedrooms were individualised and contained photos and personal possessions. Not all care plans demonstrated people’s likes and dislikes or had clear critical information about individuals. We raised this with the registered manager during the assessment who told us they were in the process of updating all care plans.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. People’s care plans reflected how best to communicate with people so they could make decisions about their care and support. The service was working towards achieving outcomes for people as recorded in their care plans such as joining a football team or an allotment club. People were encouraged to make their own choices. A professional told us “Staff attempt to do as much as they can with [person], this is driven by their wishes.”

People were able to spend time with others that were important to them, and staff supported people to facilitate and maintain relationships. A relative told us the service supported their loved one to meet up with them regularly and said, “We have a good catch up, [person] loves to meet up, have a drink and go shopping.”

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. Staff told us how they would recognise people’s immediate needs and how they would respond.

We observed interactions between staff and people and saw these relationships were caring and compassionate, enabling staff to anticipate and meet people’s needs quickly and in ways that reduced and mitigated people’s discomfort and distress.

A professional told us, “Staff know [person] and the facets of their behaviour, they are flexible and staff react appropriately.”

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to deliver person-centred care. The provider had an employee assistance scheme in place to support staff. The registered manager recognised the value of staff and had introduced an employee of the month scheme. Staff told us they were able to access flexible working arrangements and could ask for extra support when they needed it. However, some staff told us they would like to feel more supported, we fed this back to the registered manager.