Woodlands Care Home

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 changed to requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to need for consent.

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.

The provider made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

The provider assessed people’s needs before they moved into the service to ensure their individual requirements could be met. Although some records such as risk assessments and some care plans required more detail, people’s needs were assessed and regularly reviewed to ensure they received effective support.

Feedback received from relatives included, "Yes staff understand [family members] needs. They have all been good and supportive" and "Yes they understand them all and meet them all."

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

People’s nutritional and hydration needs were met in line with current best practice guidance. Some people had been prescribed a modified diet due to risks associated with choking. Management had quickly identified people’s change in needs, made appropriate referrals for specialist support and ensured this was documented. Staff were knowledgeable about how to support people’s dietary requirements and how to monitor these. We observed a staff member supporting a person with their meal, they were gentle and attentive in their approach, maintaining a slow pace and giving the person plenty of time to enjoy their meal.

People and relatives told us the food was very good. Comments included, “The food does look very nice,” and “You can’t moan, you can’t fault it.”

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.

Care records demonstrated the provider worked closely with other professionals to ensure people’s needs were met. Examples included GPs, community nurses and the mental health team. Information was shared with other professionals when needed to ensure people received joined up care.

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.

People were supported to access services to maintain and improve their health. People and relatives told us people received healthcare support when they needed it. For example, a relative said, “The service organises all these [routine checks] and the GP comes in”. Another comment was, "They [staff] do encourage [family member] with healthier choices and always come round with water intake for hydration.

A health care professional confirmed staff knew how to respond to changes in people’s health and followed their guidance effectively.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They did not always ensure outcomes were positive and consistent, or met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

Whilst there were processes in place, these needed improvements to ensure people's care and treatment was monitored effectively. Records were in place to monitor areas such as repositioning and malnutrition, however, these records did not always evidence people had been supported in line with their care plan or assessed needs. This meant unexplained weight loss would go undetected causing delays in action or referrals to external professionals if required and people’s skin integrity was placed at risk of deterioration.

The provider did not tell people about their rights around consent or respect these when delivering care and treatment.

The provider failed to ensure the correct procedure was followed in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). The Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 provides a legal framework for supporting people who may lack the ability to make certain decisions for themselves.

Although staff supported people with day-to-day decisions, we found several examples where people's capacity had not been considered where relevant to do so, and where acts were being carried out in people's best interest. Mental capacity assessments had not been carried out when specific decisions needed to be made, such as, receiving regular welfare checks, modification to diets, consent to share and having photographs taken.

Best interest decisions that had been made did not always demonstrate which family members and if they had the appropriate authority, or relevant professionals had been involved in the decision making, as required by the MCA. This included covert of medicines administration which was not undertaken in line with current guidance. This meant the principles of the Act were not always fully followed.