Elm Park Lodge

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 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 registered manager and staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

People and their relatives’ said staff were kind and respectful towards them. One person said, “They [staff] always knock [on my door].” One relative said, “Staff are very welcoming, they always offer me a cup of tea and we have a chat.” When a person became agitated, staff responded calmly and were kind to this person.

The registered manager and staff treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences.

Staff knew people well at the home. People’s care plans referenced people’s backgrounds and life experiences, staff were aware of what could cause distress and upset for individuals. They knew what to do to help these people to manage these periods of distress. One person’s relative said, “It’s the first place [name of person] is happy I think.”

The registered manager did promote people’s independence, so people did have choice and control over their own care. But there were also times when this was not consistently the case.

A person’s rights around consenting to making certain decisions was not robustly made clear and reviewed to ensure they were ok with the input from a relative. Some practices had developed in the home which undermined some people’s independence and control with their daily lives, such as when they could go into their kitchen and how they made themselves a hot drink. We fed this back to the registered manager who said they would work with the staff team and people to look at these daily practices to see if changes could be made.

The registered manager listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any concern or distress.

Staff worked well with people when they were anxious or upset about something. Staff were trained to be mindful of people’s mental health needs and what they needed to do to try and minimise distress and help people.

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

Staff spoke well of the registered manager, deputy manager and team leader. They felt confident raising issues and seeking support. One member of staff said, “Its nice management and staff work well together I think.” Staff said they were committed to supporting people whose primary need was mental health. They said they would recommend others to work at Elm Park Lodge who were interested in supporting people who had mental health issues, as a career.