Advent 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 changed to requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 45 (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 ensured staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff described people in a positive way, focusing on their strengths and individual characteristics.We observed staff interacting with people with patience and kindness. Some people became agitated and raised their voices to members of staff. Staff remained calm. Relatives also told us staff were caring towards people at the home.

People were not always treated as individuals. Care plans had limited information about people’s life histories,which is important when they are unable to share this information themselves. Communication risk assessments contained incorrect information. It referred to communication methods that should be used to help the person communicate, however the managers stated this was not the most appropriate method to be used. There was no communication passport or description of the signs staff should look out for to support the person to express themselves. Staff had no access to communication aids to help communicate or try to understand people’s vocalisation.We were informed by staff that people had limited opportunity go out and spend their time how they wanted.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, particularly for those people with a learning disability or autistic people. We received lots of feedback from staff and relatives that people were not given the opportunity to make choices and be independent. One staff member told us, “It feels like people have no voice and are not heard, it is almost like they don’t matter.” We asked staff how activities would be decided for people, and we were told they would rely on people’s preferences, there was no opportunity to explore new activities. The provider was made aware of this during the assessment and started to implement a process for this. We also found in a person’s key worker records that they wanted to start spending more time with people in the home, but there was no clear plan in place to support with this. There was also no evidence that people were choosing what they wanted to eat. One staff member told us, “People are sometimes given the same food for breakfast, lunch and tea and this is not their choice."

We were not assured staff responded to people’s needs at the moment to minimise and discomfort, concerns on distress. Upon review of incident reports, it was unclear that staff always responded in a consistent manner when people were in a heightened state of anxiety. There was no evidence of how people chose how they wanted to be supported when they were anxious or agitated, and care records showed different methods staff used when responding.

The provider did not always care about staff well-being and staff did not feel supported to enable them to provider person centred care. Staff spoke positively about the people they cared for, but shared concerns about having a lack of support from the managers when incidents occurred. We reviewed results from a staff survey which highlighted people did not feel supported and there were concerns around staffing. Staff told us these concerns had been shared with the manager, but no action or explanation had been provided. Staff were not assured managers would listen to their concerns.