Lancaster Court

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 62 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People’s records included assessment of their physical and sensory/communication needs. They were reviewed regularly with involvement of people and their families. However, we found the records did not include information about people’s backgrounds, culture and social interests.

People gave positive feedback about food at the service. A relative said, “The food is great. They do a really good job with that. [Person] is eating things they previously wouldn't have touched.” We saw tables were set with cutlery, condiments and napkins and staff gained consent before clothes protectors were used. People were given a choice of meals and supported to eat when required. Staff did not rush people and gave gentle encouragement to eat.

Staff were aware of people’s dietary requirements. A staff member told us, “Some are pureed, 6 residents have different diets. Soft. We offer sugar/cream and milk powder add in the tea [to help with weight gain].”

Kitchen staff were aware of people’s individual dietary needs and told us there were meal and snack options for people between meals. A member of staff said, “There are crisps, fruit, anything they want. If they wanted a sandwich, we could do that for them. A lot of the residents when they first come in, they do not feel it is home so don’t tend to pick up the fruit, but the carers do offer.”

People’s relatives felt communication with the home was good. A relative said, “Their communication is very good, if I can’t get hold of [person] on the phone, I email, and they get straight back to me.”

Staff had access to information they needed to provide care via electronic devices.

The GP visited weekly, and we saw these were documented in people’s records.

People were supported to access other services as required. A person told us, “I am in good health, but when I need a doctor, he comes in to see me. The chiropodist comes in too, I always have my medication in the morning. I have no pain.”

People were not supported effectively to ensure they had positive outcomes. During our visit we found a lot of people remained in bed, and there was a lack of social interaction with them from staff. We reviewed activity logs and found minimal evidence of activity for people cared for in bed. We fed this back to the provider who told us staff tended to do more than reflected in the records and they had been asked to include more detail. However, we found there were plenty of entries in records of people able to participate in the group activities.

Staff completed mental capacity assessments with people in line with guidance. However, in some cases we found minimal effort to support people to understand the decision being made, with similar narrative in different people’s assessments. For example, documentation tended to state staff had a discussion with a person, returned 10 minutes later and the person could not recall what had been discussed. This meant we were not assured staff had taken all reasonable action to support people to make decisions themselves.

Staff documented in people’s records to show consent had been gained. For example, where an injury occurred, and they asked to take a photo. Consent was also documented for daily support needs such as supporting people with their continence needs.