Amberley Hall Care Home

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 70 (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 observed staff to treat people kindly in the service. They were compassionate and caring. We received feedback from 1 person around their privacy and dignity not always being maintained. We raised this with the provider, and they reminded the workforce on ensuring people’s privacy and dignity was to always be upheld.

However, all other people spoken with informed us the staff were kind and caring. A person said, “The staff are brilliant here; they are all very friendly and helpful and always cheerful.” Another person told us, “In terms of receiving care then I am in the best place, I get on well with the [staff] and they do their best for me.”

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. We observed people being treated as individuals, their rooms were personalised to their needs. Their care was personalised to them. We reviewed care records and they told staff about people’s cultural and religious needs and how to support them to meet these. They recorded in detail the life history of a person. Everyone we spoke with told us how they were supported as individuals. A person told us, “I can get up when I want, go to bed when I want, I can choose what to wear, I feel I can do what I want. I am not bothered about going out anymore and they don’t try and force me to do anything.”

The provider promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. The provider ensured there were a range of activities throughout the day for people to participate in. This covered 7 days a week. People’s care plans recorded their likes and dislikes. Their daily routine and observations in the environment reflected this. They knew what was important to the people they supported. 1 person’s care plan recorded the importance of being given “jobs” to ensure they had a purpose and informed staff what jobs they could participate in. We reviewed care records and they showed people were in control of their lives.

We received mixed feedback on some of the activities provided. A person told us, “I am not interested in the activities.” A relative told us, “No, they don’t have the right type of activities, people with dementia are forgotten about.” Another relative told us, “When my [relative] is in the right frame of mind they like the animals and music. The [staff] who run the activities are very, very good.” However, we also noted there was ongoing reviews of the activities and where people had recommended changes these were listened too and acted upon.

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. We observed staff responded to people’s needs promptly within the service. They ensured people had their call bells within reach and they anticipated their needs. Feedback from people was largely positive about staff responsiveness; however, some people told us there were occasions when they had to wait for support. We shared this feedback with the provider.

The provider did not always monitor the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. We reviewed the services rotas and found some staff were working 60 hours a week frequently. We did not see evidence of these working hours being reviewed with staff to ensure their well-being was monitored. The supervisions we reviewed appeared task focused and often repetitive between staff. We raised this with the provider, and they informed us of a new supervision policy that was currently being reviewed to address this shortfall. However, the service had several initiatives in place for employee of the month and encouraged staff to vote for their colleagues. They had internal achievement awards to recognise staffs’ hard work and had regular staff meetings. We received mixed feedback from staff on their well-being. Staff told us “If anything is abusive then it is acted upon. But any support the staff need is not listened too” and “For staff it’s not listened too but anything to do with the people it is escalated”, “Surveys were held but I wasn't informed of action that they took following them.” Other feedback we received was, “We're given the hours that we were promised. The door is always open for us to speak to the managers if we've got any requests.” And “I feel valued and supported by the team and management. Generally manageable, although some shifts can be busy.”