Anchor House - Doncaster

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 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 inadequate. This meant people were not treated with compassion and there were breaches of dignity; staff caring attitudes had significant shortfalls.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to person-centred care at the service. 

This service scored 30 (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 treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity. Members of staff were task focused and did not always interact people in a kind and caring way. Interactions were centred on completing tasks rather than the provision of person-centred care individualised to each person. People lived in a service where the culture did not always support and maintain their dignity. For example, people's bedding was extremely creased, and people were left wearing soiled clothing-protectors after their meal. Relatives told us about how their family member’s clothes were often not ironed or went missing. We heard examples where slippers and footwear never made it on to people’s feet. This showed a lack of dignity and respect for people. People's laundry was hung over washing lines outside but not pegged in place. Items fell onto the floor and they were left there. This demonstrated there was no regard for people’s clothing and indicated a culture where people’s dignity was not a key element of their care and support.

The provider did not treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The provider did not take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. There were insufficient members of staff on duty who were not able to provide individualised care and support for people in line with their personal preferences. For example, people were not able to spend time outside or go out into the local community. Members of staff on duty were not deployed effectively and there was minimal engagement with people in between set tasks related to care and support. People were often left just sat in the lounge area with nothing to do.

The provider did not promote people’s independence, so people did not know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. We did not see any evidence which demonstrated how the service supported people to maintain their independence. There was a culture where people were not encouraged to engage in meaningful activities or make choices to support their independence. The low number of members of staff and their poor deployment did not support people have their individual needs met or have choice or control over their lives.

The provider did not listen to or understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. People cared for in bed received limited engagement or interaction from members of staff. The low number of members of staff on duty meant it was not easy to respond to people’s immediate needs because the focus was on task completion rather than person-centred care and support.

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. Members of staff were on ‘zero hours’ contracts which meant there was a risk to the continuity of care and support for people. There was a handbook in place for members of staff, however, it had not been updated with the new registered manager’s details. A member of staff told us, “I am confident to speak about any concerns that I have at my workplace.” We identified concerns about care and support, but members of staff either had not identified any concerns about the care and support provided at Anchor House – Doncaster or did not feel comfortable to raise their concerns. This indicated a workplace culture which did not support good quality effective care with a focus on continuous service improvement.