Strode Park House

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 changed to requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 45 (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 treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity. Staff did not always treat colleagues from other organisations with respect. There were situations, such as people moving rooms, where staff had not treated people well and with respect. During this process, the management team had not informed other professionals such as social workers of their plans to move people’s rooms.

However, relatives told us staff respected people’s privacy and dignity, “They always knock before entering their room and wait for them to answer.”

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not always take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. People’s care plans were care based and reflected people’s care needs such as medical conditions. There was limited information about people’s choices, preferences, cultural and spiritual needs.

Some care plans summaries included social information, but this had not been transferred to people’s care plans. Relatives told us staff had not always encouraged people to take part in activities, a relative told us, “They are good with looking after their complex needs and do it well. Where they do less well in the social aspect.” People’s social needs were not always given the same priority as their medical needs, there was a risk people would become bored, and their mood would deteriorate.

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. People’s care plans did not always contain guidance for staff to refer to in order to promote people’s independence. There was contradictory information about people’s mobility, there was a risk people would not be supported to be as independent as possible. People had raised concerns about parts of the service where they could not complete tasks independently, such as making drinks. People had not been supported to be as independent as possible.

Other people told us they had a lot of control and choice in how they lived their lives. People who had lived at the service for a long time had developed their own routine and staff supported them as they wanted. One person told us they went out when they wanted, made their own coffee and has a part time job.

Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. There were systems in place to make sure staff could respond quickly when people needed support, but these had not always been effective, for example when urinary catheters blocked. Staff had not made sure there was stock available to change a person’s catheter and staff had to use a catheter which was not the correct size. There was a risk the new catheter would block, fall out or the stoma site would close round the smaller tube, causing issues at the next catheter change.

Staff described how people communicated with them and how they anticipated people’s needs. We observed staff supporting people when they became anxious or wanted to leave the room. Staff managed to calm people and help them to remain happy.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. There were people living at the service who were not funded to receive nursing care, any nursing support should be provided by the district nurses. The provider had expected the nursing team to provide clinical support to people they were not responsible for. This placed their registration at risk if anything went wrong as they were not insured to provide this support.

Some staff told us they did not always feel supported especially at night or the weekend when the management team were not working. Staff told us they had not had regular supervision to discuss their training needs and practice, which they thought would be beneficial. Some staff also had concerns about the way information was passed between shifts, there were different handovers depending on your role. Staff did not receive all the information about people’s care and support, there was a risk some important information may be missed which might impact on the care and support people received.