The Coach 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 provider 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 80 (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 always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity.

People told us staff were kind and treated them in a way then enhanced their lives. Throughout our inspection we observed staff to be happy, smiling and positive in their interactions with people. Staff were relaxed and sociable with people showing approachable facial expressions and body language to which people responded positively. Staff spoke about people with empathy and understanding. From our observations, discussions, feedback and evidence seen staff and managers at all levels treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity.

Staff told us how they supported people in a compassionate way that supported and promoted their dignity. Care records demonstrated this approach to meeting people’s needs to ensure staff acted in a respectful and kind way to the people they supported.

The provider treated people as individuals and was exceptional in how they made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The provider took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The provider operated an open culture that sought to promote and celebrate people’s strengths, cultural backgrounds and protected characteristics. Staff took great delight in showing us how they supported one person with connecting with their heritage and culture through the use of videos and materials in their own language. Staff had developed a takeaway menu adapting it from English to a language they could understand. This helped this person form a connection with their culture and promoted their individuality.

People were encouraged to explore and discuss their sexual needs without judgment from staff, other people in the service or visitors. Staff supported this by promoting sexual identification through empowerment while protecting people’s rights to intimacy, privacy, relationships, and sexual expression. One person was exploring this while in The Coach House with staff supporting them to attend events and activities with groups of people with the same background. This person had found the lack of judgement and empowerment to be a significant shift in their own identity. They told us, “Staff really are helping me with my sexual identity. I feel comfortable here to express my sexuality and although the staff and other residents support me with this, I don’t yet feel comfortable out of The Coach House, but the staff have still supported me to go clubs and things which I need to do. I feel a lot more like me than I have done for years.”

We saw some people came and went from the service as they chose to pursue their own activities. For those with restrictions in place, staff supported them with accessing the local community for shopping, trips, meals out, walks and a range of activities. These reflected people’s backgrounds and interests, such as maintaining links for one person with their hometown that they were very passionate about. This approach enabled people to be an individual and made sure their care, support and treatment met their personal needs and preferences.

The provider promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People told us they were supported to remain independent with their day to day tasks, such as cooking, personal care, managing their medicines and managing their finances. Care plans reflected people’s choices and preferences around those areas and how they wished their support to be provided to them. We observed staff supporting people with choices and enabling them to make independent decisions offering an opinion but then respecting people’s views and choices.

The provider 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 recognised when people were becoming withdrawn, distressed, or experiencing symptoms of their mental health. They described to us their approach to giving people space and time and using simple, reassuring prompts or taking time to talk with people, to provide that reassurance. People confirmed to us that when things changed that caused them distress, staff were quick to respond and supported people to be calm and reflect. One person said, “I get urges to act out sometimes and can get really annoyed but when that happens the staff know I just need to burn off energy, so they keep me busy and talking and it goes away.”

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Without exception, all the staff we spoke with spoke very positively about the support they received from the provider. Staff told us how they were empowered and supported to carry out the job they did to the best of their ability. Staff said the provider was approachable, friendly and would always find time to visit the service and speak to them on an equal level. One staff member said, “I think [the provider] has the same values we all do and I think their openness and honesty means we get the best support we can get.”