Archived: Rock 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 requires improvement. 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 and dignity and respect.

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 always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity. People were not always supported by staff who were showed kindness. For example, during an incident where a person was distressed, the staff member did not handle the situation appropriately and was racially abusive towards to the person. Following the incident, the person detailed that they felt the staff member was dismissive of their distress.

Staff did not always use language that was kind or compassionate within documentation. For example, when staff were recording information to handover to the next shift, they detailed a person as ‘hounding’ another person within the service.

During the inspection we did observe staff talking kindly to people. However, people were living restricted and isolated lives, with no individual consideration to their well being or individual needs. The provider, leaders and staff had not recognised that this failure to ensure people were appropriately and meaningfully supported in all aspects of their lives meant that as an organisation they failed to demonstrate kindness, compassion and dignity to people.

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. People were not able to access their 1-1 support hours, which meant that they could not spend their time doing activities that supported and promoted their mental health, physical health and wellbeing. Daily notes showed little evidence of people being supported or encouraged by staff to engage in activities of their choosing. For example, one person told us of their interest in the universe, there was no evidence in the persons daily notes on how staff supported this person to engaged in their special interest.

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 not always supported have access to activities and the local community to promote and support their independence, health and wellbeing. Daily notes detailed that people were not consistently supported by staff to access activities to promote their health and wellbeing. Daily notes for one person detailed they usually only went out into the community with a family member and there little evidence that staff supported this person to go out. One relative told us, ‘[Manager] is not happy with activities for everyone there. [other relative] will often say to me they don’t take him anywhere or do anything. The only time they get out is when [other relative] takes them.’

Since our last inspection, one person had been supported to engaged in activities within the home that they previously had not done. Staff shared they felt this was having a positive impact on the person wellbeing. However, this was not most people’s experience.

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. For example, we identified an incident where someone experienced a nose bleed and this was recorded within the handover notes. However, it is not clear what action was taken by staff to follow this up, given that the records stated they were unwell the following day.

Records detailed another incident where they found a person had fallen in the home. The record detailed that staff had to help the person ‘wake up from the floor’. Staff had failed to fully investigate and document how any why the person was on the floor and if they were conscious.

We observed staff being oblivious to people and their immediate needs during our inspection. People demonstrated and expressed a need to have more meaningful engagement, but this was not acknowledged or responded to. This increased the risk of people’s mental health declining.

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. Staff were not supported the ensure they had the training needed to provide safe care. For example, a training need was identified around de-escalation and this was not actioned.

Relatives told us they were not always assured of the staff’s competence. One relative told us, ‘I’m not sure what their training is. They didn’t pick up on [persons] being unwell, we had to call back the second ambulance, if they’re medically trained I don’t know.’

The last inspection found that staff did not have regular opportunities to provide feedback, raise concerns and suggest ways to improve the service or staff experiences. However, the new manager implemented a new system for supervision in November 2025. One staff member told us, ‘I think the support we get is getting better with the new manager’.