BH Residential 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 provider involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

The provider was in breach of legal regulation in relation to person centred care and the provision of activities. The provider had not sought and documented people’s showering or bathing preferences, and as a result could not evidence people’s wishes were being met. Activity provision required improving. People told us there was little to do during the day, except what they arranged for themselves. We observed very few activities during the 3 site visits we completed. Overall observations of care were positive and people said they were treated with kindness and respect. People’s rights were upheld and any protected characteristics respected. Staff enjoyed working at the home and felt supported.

This service scored 60 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

During the assessment, overall observations of care were positive. The Expert by Experience (ExE) who supported the assessment; an ExE is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service, noted some nice interactions between people and staff, as well as people being treated with respect. People provided mixed feedback, with some stating they were happy with the care they received, whilst others felt this could be better. Comments included, “The staff look after me well… they tend to my needs” and “I feel relatively safe but I’m not impressed with the overall care. Everyone is being so nice today because you are here.” During the assessment, we observed staff members not promoting a person’s dignity regarding continence care. The staff members loudly stated to the person in a communal area “Come with me as I need to check your pad.” As the person was not responding to their request, they stated this at least 4 times, before another staff member came and took over. We fed this back to the manager at the time.

Overall, people were treated as individuals, with care plans being specific to each person. Care plans also explained whether people had any specific cultural or religious needs and how these would be met. However, it was not clear if people’s preferences in regard to bathing and/or showering had been sought and were being provided. This information was not in the care plans we viewed during the assessment. Monitoring charts and daily notes showed people who required support with this task, were only being provided with 1 shower per week. Whilst this may have been there choice, this was not recorded anywhere.

People told us there was limited activity provision in place, and they largely had to amuse themselves. One person stated, “I tend to read in the morning and in the afternoon I colour pictures and do paintings which I send for on line or buy from the craft shop. There is not a lot going on in here I just do my own thing.” Another said, “I like colouring in, there is a small tub with a few crayons in, but there’s not a lot to do in here. They say they will do things and change things but they don’t.” Whilst a third told us, “There are no activities in here. I like sewing, but have not done any. You have to provide your own equipment.” Observations during assessment visits supported people’s feedback. Although an activity schedule was displayed, we saw no evidence this was followed. We observed a group of people playing dominoes, though this activity had been instigated by one of the people taking part, rather than it being a scheduled activity. Some people we spoke with, told us they received support to access the community, for example to go shopping, but paid separate carers to facilitate this. We asked the manager about this, who told us a local domiciliary care provider provided this service.

We observed staff responding to people’s immediate needs and being mindful of changes in their usual presentation, which could indicate something was wrong. After noticing a person appeared slightly distressed and less responsive than normal, a staff member commenced a number of observations and checks, using the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) which is a tool developed by the Royal College of Physicians which improves the detection and response to clinical deterioration in older adults. Within care homes it can be used to spot the early warning signs of people becoming unwell. These checks highlighted the person had a raised temperature and would benefit from bed rest and being seen by the GP.

Staff told us they enjoyed working at the home, felt supported and able to raise any concerns. To support this process, the previous manager had introduced staff drop in sessions, which provided set periods during the week or month when the manager would be available for staff to ‘drop in’ either for a chat or to discuss any specific issues.