Woodstock Nursing Home

Updated 2 May 2024

Dates of assessment: 7, 9 and 21 May 2024. Woodstock Nursing Home specialises in the care of people who live with dementia. At the time of our assessment, 24 people were being supported. The assessment was carried out in response to concerns about people’s safety. We found, since our last assessment of the service, improvements had been made in staff recruitment and governance processes and the provider was no longer in breach of legal regulations. The arrangements for the management of people’s medicines were not always safe and effective. At the time of this assessment the provider took action to address this. The management team worked to ensure sufficient staff were available to support people, in accordance with the provider’s staffing tool. Ongoing challenges in maintaining a stable workforce had resulted in a depletion of the skills and experience needed to meet people’s increasingly complex needs. Therefore, people experienced differences in the quality of the support provided to them. Staff were aware of how to report concerns of a safeguarding nature, and they took action to help reduce the risk of people being abused or harmed. Where incidents occurred, the registered manager and other staff engaged with partner agencies to investigate them as required. Staff did not always feel they could speak up and challenge some decisions being made regarding the management of the service, and some did not feel valued. New staff were being recruited and appropriate recruitment checks completed. The provider had recently formed a new senior leadership team. They had introduced new processes to monitor the service’s performance, and they were taking steps to ensure improvements were made. These new processes and support arrangements would need more time to demonstrate their effectiveness in making the improvements still needed and in sustaining those that had already been achieved.

Updated 2 May 2024

We gathered the views of relatives who were people’s main representatives. Relatives had no concerns with how their family member's medicines were managed, however they had mixed views on whether there were always enough staff. Most relatives felt their family member was safe at Woodstock Nursing Home, although some had mixed views about whether their relative’s immediate needs were supported. Where their relative had been involved in an incident or accident, most felt staff had been open with them, about what had happened and what action had been taken to safeguard their relative from abuse or harm. In some cases, further investigation and assurances had been required and relatives had been aware of external health and social care professionals being involved in that process. Most relatives found the registered manager to be approachable and helpful. Where relatives had raised issues with the registered manager, they had differing views on how well these had been addressed.