Leahyrst Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

This service scored 50 (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 did not always make sure people’s care and treatment were effective because they did not always check and discuss people’s health, care, and wellbeing needs with them. People had their needs assessed prior to living at the service, this included people who received respite care. However, we found several care records with conflicting and missing information. For example, 1 person's care plan did not detail they required a catheter in situ to support them with their continence.

Due to concerns we found relating to records, we could not be assured people received evidenced based care. This included information relating to people’s assessed needs, such as what specific equipment they required, how staff should use hoist slings and people's speech and language therapy (SALT) information.

The provider did not always work well across teams and services to support people. We could not be assured accurate and up to date information was passed between the staff team, or to partners visiting the service. Staff did not always complete accurate and contemporaneous records. We found several daily monitoring records to be lacking, such as what diet people had eaten, fluids offered and repositioning. Staff told us they worked well together and communication and morale was good amongst the team. A staff member said, “It is a nice place. Everyone is friendly and helps each other out. The manager is one of the best I have ever had. Staff are kind to people. We are like one big family.”

Staff did not always support people to live healthier lives, or where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support. Whilst we found no harm to people, improvements were required to records to ensure the service could evidence they supported people to live healthily. For example, we found a person who required a target amount of fluids each day, and records did not evidence this was provided. We also found some missing documentation relating to staff discussing a person’s weight gain with the GP. Staff told us they did not always record everything they verbally told the GP.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. Care records were monitored and reviewed; however, these were not robust and had not identified when changes were needed to reflect people's current needs. However, we found no harm to people and people were encouraged to give feedback about their care, through regular meetings and independent care home reviewers. People told us they had good outcomes and particularly enjoyed the activities and outings on offer. A person told us, “They do games, exercises, I go out to the cafe sometimes. I get my newspaper delivered every day as well." And a relative said, “[Name] has always loved music, so they are in their element when they have the singers in."

Some improvements were required to ensure staff worked within the principles of the mental capacity act (MCA). People had assessments, to determine their capacity to make decisions about their care and treatment. However, where people had deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) in place, conditions relating to these had not always been met. We also found some delays in requesting renewals. Where required, people had advocates in place, to assist them to express their needs and wishes.