Driftwood House

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.

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 67 (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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

People had their needs assessed prior to their admission to the service. The provider would then determine if they could safely meet these needs. One staff member explained, ‘If we have a new resident coming, the acting manager will assess them and we share our thoughts with the manager. We know best if we can support them or not. We then create and start their care plan so staff are familiar.’ The provider worked with other health and social care professionals during the assessment process to ensure information about people’s needs was accurate.

The provider did not always plan and deliver people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. The provider used tools such as the Waterlow scale (for pressure ulcer risk) and the IDDSI scale (International Dysphasia Diet Standardisation Initiative). IDDSI documents the degree to which people’s food and drink needs to be modified, by pureeing or thickening, to ensure it can be swallowed safely. Records relating to these monitoring tools were reviewed and updated as necessary. However, repositioning charts in place to reduce the likelihood of people developing a pressure ulcer, were not always completed in line with the Waterlow score and the pressure care plans generated from this. This meant there was a risk people might not be receiving the pressure care they required, although we saw no impact of this. People were involved in assessments where they had capacity. Some relatives fed back they had not been asked to be part of recent reviews and the provider assured us they were aware of this and had already begun a process of reviewing everybody’s care.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services. The staff team worked well together and with external health and social care professionals. One healthcare professional spoke positively about the way the service worked with them to support a person recovering from a serious injury saying, ‘They are really proactive with exercises. I always find the staff very helpful. If I ask staff to mobilise a person in a certain way, they do it.'

Where people moved between this service and another or back to their own home, we saw information was clearly communicated and aimed to ensure a smooth transition.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

Staff supported people with a variety of health appointments and knew their health needs well. All the relatives we spoke with praised the way the service supports people’s health needs. One relative commented, ‘They got a nurse out to my [family member] last week. They are always very responsive.’ Care plans contained information about people’s health conditions and outlined how to manage them. Diabetes care was good and there was clear information for staff to refer to for guidance. Staff told us they were confident they would receive training should a person be admitted to the service with a health condition which they were not familiar with.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it.

Staff used monitoring tools to identify changes in people’s health and took action to address any issues. Records were in place to monitor a variety of people’s health needs including their weight, eating and drinking and pressure care. However, we noted a record of people’s weight changes, some with quite significant amounts, had been recorded on a form but it was not always clear what action had followed from this.

Although care plans documented how a person’s risk of developing a pressure sore should be reduced, monitoring charts of people’s repositioning were not always completed which meant there was a risk people were not always being repositioned in line with their care plan. We judged people were being both repositioned and referred to healthcare specialists for nutrition support but poor recording in this area meant there was a risk of incorrect information and something being missed.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment. Records relating to consent were good and people had been appropriately involved in decisions about their care where they were able and willing to do this. Records were regularly reviewed to ensure they were accurate. We observed staff routinely ensuring people were consenting to the care and treatment provided. Staff had received training in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which relates to people’s capacity to consent to care and treatment and we found understanding of this was good.