Ashring 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 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.

We saw staff sitting with people and chatting with them. The atmosphere was friendly and welcoming, and people looked happy when interacting with staff. We spoke with professionals that visit the service, and they confirmed they had always seen staff being kind and supportive to people. When supporting people with personal care, staff ensure that this was done with dignity and in the privacy of the bathroom or their bedroom.

People were supported with personal care, and everyone was dressed appropriately, in clothes of their choice and well presented. Attention had been given to nails and hair.

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.

Whilst care plans contained some details of people’s likes, dislikes and preferred daily routines, these had not changed with the individual person as they aged and developed other physical health conditions. Cultural and spiritual needs were highlighted and staff told us that several religious denominations were supported. Staff did know people well and we observed several interactions and conversations between people and staff where staff were focussing on the person, talking about their interests and their friends and families. One staff member talked through peoples photographs in their room which told a story of their lives, people who were important to them and things they had taken part in. There was a lack of activities that promoted people to be involved in things they enjoyed, for example, games, singing and one to one conversations. Families told us that staff were always welcoming and supportive and respected their wishes. One relative said, “This was a good home, it slipped backwards, I hope that things continue to get better, it would seem to going forward.”

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 were able to spend time with others that were important to them, and staff supported people to facilitate and maintain relationships. This was confirmed by families. One relative said, “Communication has improved over the past few months, which has really been beneficial to me and to my relative, I feel things are going forward.”

We observed people’s needs and requests being met during the site visits, people had choice to change their plans and activities when they chose to. However, the choices for people were limited at this time in respect of activities. Some of this was contributed to by peoples’ health changing, a decrease in their mobility and staff changes.” The management are aware of this and have secured a home vehicle and are looking to make changes to the social side of people’s needs. This was included in the action plan supplied by the management team.

The provider listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

People were observed closely, and their needs were responded to by a staff team that knew them well. Staff picked up on signs of discomfort, distress and agitation quickly and used their knowledge of the person to respond in an appropriate way. We saw staff using diversionary tactics with one person who was getting agitated. Diversionary tactics arestrategies used to distract from a main issue by drawing attention to something else.

Relatives told us, “They keep me informed of any changes and for that I am grateful.”

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

We did receive mixed feedback regarding the changes in management over the past few months, one staff member said, “It was unsettling to have these changes in managers, but we do have a new manager starting soon, which will be good.” Another staff member said, “We have had really good support from the management team.”

A new member of Staff told us they felt well supported in their role and welcomed into the team. One staff member told us how the training had improved to cover all aspects of peoples’ care and was interesting. All staff we spoke with found the management team to be approachable, listened to what they had to say, and acted where improvements or suggestions were made. Staff told us the management was approachable and there was an open-door policy in the office and staff could access the office at any time to speak to management.