Coalway Lane

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 service involved people andtreated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At the last inspection we rated this key question good. At this inspection the rating has remained good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this. 

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect. We observed staff work closely and sensitively with people. They also had effective systems in place for ensuring positive risk-taking approaches were adopted, which led to people feeling they were valued. A person said, “The staff are really good and have always treated me with kindness, listened to me and respected my wishes.”

Staff treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. The staff team actively promoted an approach where people were truly respected and valued as individuals and empowered to be partners in their care. People found the support systems at the service enabled them to control and mitigate any risk or difficulties they may face. One person said, “I have really come along way since moving here and am now looking forward to moving on.”

Staff consistently promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. The management team enabled staff to deliver person-centred care, which supported people to manage either crisis within their lives or manage their conditions and regain the confidence to live independently. People were consistently supported to develop and enhance their skills for independent living and take charge of their lives. This was the fundamental basis of the design of the service. People reported staff provided care in a timely and responsive manner. They discussed how the service had been able to support them effectively and help them manage the difficulties in their mental health they had recently experienced. They found staff provided a safe haven to recover and allowed them the space to do this. They felt they could control their lives and retained the choice around how they lived these but staff provided really good advice.

Staff 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. We observed staff were responsive to individual’s needs and people confirmed this was the case. Staff were knowledgeable about each person and could describe their needs, including how any of their cultural needs were met. The service was divided into 4 buildings with the crisis unit being in the main building and rehabilitation services in the three adjacent houses. Staff were not based in the 3 houses but routinely went in to see how people were. People in the houses told us they call or text down to the main building if they wanted staff to provide support. We discussed how this was managed if there was a crisis in one of the houses. A staff member said, “When there are only 3 members of staff on duty and we have crisis residents in as well as all the rehab beds to full capacity, I find that we are only managing to do the bare minimum and time with the rehab residents.” The management team were reviewing staff dependency tools and how this affected the number of staff needed and how they were deployed.

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported staff to always deliver person-centred care. The senior management team monitored operational delivery to ensure staff well-being was maintained and they had adequate support to deliver the service. The senior management team were extremely responsive to staff concerns and listened closely to their feedback. Following changes in the Home Office guidance around requirements for international workers to remain in the UK the provider acted quickly to resolve these and within 2 days had increased the base pay scale for all the staff. They supported staff in a wide range of other areas such as salary sacrifice schemes, health benefits and early draw down of wages, which greatly benefited staff and improved their well-being. The people’s director also acted as an advocate in many national and governmental forums ensuring there was a fairness and equity of access across all benefit schemes. Staff were positive about the management team and how well supported they felt. They described how their work was routinely praised and recognised. Staff were encouraged and supported to complete 2 days a year as volunteers as the team found this gave people a sense of well-being. Recently the provider had been winners of a North East of England Excellence in Health and Wellbeing Award.