Lancaster Court

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.

People received kind and compassionate care from staff. We observed this during our visit and a staff member told us, “I love the interaction the staff have with our residents, even the domestic staff have an excellent rapport with the residents.”

People were well presented, and their privacy and dignity maintained. A person told us the staff always wore gloves and aprons when they helped them and made sure the door was closed. Another person said, “They are very kind, they give me food I like.”

A professional told us, “The staff I have dealings with are exceptionally caring, know their residents well, are flexible to their needs, treat them with compassion and dignity and will often go above and beyond to be there for the residents.”

People’s care records lacked details of their social, cultural and personal interests. Although there were activities for people who accessed the communal areas, we found there was a lack of social interaction for people who were cared for in bed or chose to remain in their rooms. We reviewed people’s records and saw the entries for activities and interactions for those who chose to remain in their rooms were far fewer. We fed this back to the provider and were told staff did not always document full details of what they had done. However, people we spoke with acknowledged staff popped in to see them, but they still felt bored and lonely.

Staff supported people to be independent and make choices. A member of staff said, “We encourage them to wash what they can themselves first” and “We show them 2 clothes and ask them which 1.” We saw 1 person had a clothes rail in their room as they found the built-in wardrobes difficult to use. This supported them to maintain their independence as they were able to access the clothes themselves.

We observed group activities in communal areas during our visit and people told us they enjoyed them. A person said, “I join in activities, I have joined the choir. I do bowling, bingo, yoga, a dog visits. They took us to the zoo.” A relative told us, “The activities are much better recently, [person] has cooked cakes, in the summer [they] go out in the garden and do planting in the raised beds.”

Staff responded to people’s needs and provided appropriate support with their communication needs. For example, we observed good use of eye contact, facial expression and gestures to support a deaf person to understand what they were saying. A member of staff said, "You need to observe and anticipate their needs. For example, if someone is standing up from their seat, you find out if they need help, if they want to go to the toilet or to their room."

We observed some positive interactions during the group activity where people engaged more following encouragement.

Staff felt supported by managers. This included with personal circumstances; we were told they had accommodated a different working pattern for a staff member with health problems. However, we reviewed 2 staff supervision records and whilst there was opportunity for staff to input to the discussion and request additional training, we noted the feedback from the supervisor and action plan was identical and contained the same information for the 2 staff supervised. This meant there was not a clear focus for the staff member on any individual areas for development.