Alt Park Nursing 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 people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At the 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 reviews of people’s care and treatment were effective. While regular reviews of people's needs took place, further improvement was needed to ensure reviews identified inconsistencies within care records and to ensure action was taken to detail all interventions needed to reduce risk. For example, we found care plans relating to the management of skin risks did not always detail all the care actions or equipment needed to reduce the risk of skin related harm.

The provider was responsive to our feedback and took steps to update the care records before the end of the assessment.

The provider did not always plan and deliver people’s care and treatment with them in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards. The provider did not always follow good practice guidelines issued by The National Institute of Health and Social Care Excellence (NICE) or CQC in areas such as skin integrity, the safe management of medicines and supporting people living with dementia. For example, the approach to managing periods of emotional distress were not aligned with recognised best practice. Best practice guidance requires the least restrictive options to be used such as proactive support and person-centred strategies to manage periods of emotional distress with the use of sedative medicines being used as a last resort. The records did not always evidence this approach, and this increased the risk people may not achieve the best possible outcomes.

The provider mostly understood the importance of working well across teams and services to support people. The registered manager had worked to improve the sharing of information by introducing daily meetings. However, further improvement was needed to ensure changes in people’s needs were acted upon. For example, where the provider had previously escalated concerns regarding people’s skin conditions, we found they did not escalate to external health professionals in a timely manner when the prescribed treatment plan was not effective and people continued to experience symptoms of discomfort.

The provider did not always support people to manage their health and wellbeing, so people could not always maximise their independence, choice and control. People were not always enabled to make choices or participate in decisions that affected their health and wellbeing. For example, care plans were completed by staff without collaboration with people to understand what mattered to the person or what health goals they wished to work towards.

Although the provider did not always follow good practice, they engaged in weekly meetings with health professionals to review people’s health and they employed a nurse to conduct regular visits to the home to provide advice on clinical best practice.

Although the provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment, these reviews were not always effective. They did not always ensure records demonstrated positive outcomes and consistency in care, or they met the expectations of people themselves. For example, where people had risks associated with periods of emotional distress, records were not always accurate or complete. The lack of records meant that effective monitoring could not always take place and this increased the risk of people not having their needs met.

Staff did not always seek people’s consent before delivering care and treatment. Our observations found staff did not always speak with or obtain consent from people prior to providing care such as, putting dignity aprons on them at lunch time. Further improvement was needed to ensure people were involved in day-to-day care decisions.

We saw appropriate processes had been followed to assess people’s ability to consent to specific decisions and where applicable, we found decisions were made in their best interests following the correct legal processes.