St Matthews Limited - The Avenue

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 65 (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. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

People were treated with kindness, compassion and dignity. People spoke positively about the care and support they received. A person told us, “I think they are very good and caring, empathetic, nothing is too much trouble.” Another person told us, “They are really caring, the help me with everything I need.”

Relatives generally spoke positively about the service. A relative told us, “This place puts me at ease. Knowing [relative] is here and is being looked after is a weight off my mind.” Other relatives told us, “I’m very happy with the carers they are lovely,” “I’m very happy with the staff they do a good job,” and, “The staff are good and caring.”

One relative who visited the home regularly told us, “Staff are helpful, they care, they have empathy and nothing is too much trouble”.

Some people could not directly tell us about their experience. We used our short observational framework for assessment (SOFI) to observe people’s experience of the care they received. Our observations found staff were kind, caring and compassionate throughout our assessment although we noted engagement with people required some improvement.

The provider 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.

Staff demonstrated they understood people’s needs and supported them in ways that treated them as an individual. For example, a staff member told us, “[Person] prefers to be in their bedroom. We understand that.” The person told us, “Yes - I prefer to stay in bed in my room. I’m nice and cosy in my room.”

People and relatives told us they felt treated as individuals. A person told us, “I like to have a shower every day, they know it is important to me so they make sure I can do this every day. A relative told us, “They always use [relatives} name, they are interested in him.”

A staff member told us, “It is my passion to provide care that people want. We learn [people’s] likes and dislikes and use these to deliver good care. Another staff member told us, “It is my dream come true to be working here supporting people.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Feedback from people, their relatives and our observations in relation to promoting choice and control were mixed during this assessment. A person told us, “I’d give the staff 9/10 they do a brilliant job.” Another person told us, “‘I shower myself I’m quite independent.” However, we also received feedback that people didn’t always feel they were given control over everyday decisions. For example, a person told us, “I don’t really get asked what I want, they just do it for me.”

Some people could not directly tell us about their experience. We used our short observational framework for assessment (SOFI) to observe people’s experience of the care they received. Although our observations found staff sometimes offered people choice and control over their daily lives, this was not consistent. For example, people had no involvement in choosing the music being played in the lounge and we observed this was not appropriate for people living in the home. We also observed staff not engaging people about their choice of drink and making an assumption about what they would like. However, we also observed staff offering choice and control. For example, asking a person what clothes they would like to wear while preparing to get dressed.

There was an activities timetable, including music therapy, pampering sessions, karaoke, and pet therapy. The provider also utilised an external activities worker twice per week to carryout armchair exercises. We generally received positive feedback in relation to activities. A relative told us, “[Relative] chooses which activities to do. [Relative] likes the variety of animals and the guinea pigs. There seems enough going on.” Another relative told us, “They have a good schedule of activities.”
 

The provider did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Feedback from people, their relatives and our observations in relation to the engagement between people and staff to meet people’s needs was mixed. A person told us, “The staff seem very nice. I do have a job to understand them sometimes”. Another person told us, “I’m in bed most of the time, staff never stay, it’s all rushed.” A final person said, “I’d like to be able to chat with people if they had time.”
 

Some people could not directly tell us about their experience. We used our short observational framework for assessment (SOFI) to observe people’s experience of the care they received. Although our observations found staff were kind, caring and compassionate and did respond to people’s needs, we also observed occasions where staff did not respond in a timely way. For example, during an observation in the communal lounge we saw a person verbally, and with hand gestures, attempting to attract the attention of staff. However, this went unnoticed by staff who were focussed on completing tasks rather than supporting people.

We shared our feedback with the provider during our assessment and encouraged them to complete their own observations of staff engaging with people. We noted improvements being made to increase engagement during our assessment and staff told us they were using our feedback as learning.

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

The provider had an employee assistance programme (EAP) and well-being support was available, including access to a GP, health checks and a counselling service. Staff working for the provider also had access to a range of benefits, including a refer a friend, wagestream (a financial wellbeing scheme), and access to discounts.

Staff told us they felt the provider was supportive and cared about their employees. A staff member told us, “They are supportive,” and a “Good company to work for.” Another staff member said, “We are able to nominated for employee of the month.”

Staff told us they received regular supervisions and an appraisal once a year. We saw records to confirm supervision and appraisals had been regularly completed. We also saw records of regular team meetings for staff working in the home and for managers to meet with the provider’s senior leadership team.