Acacia House - Peterborough

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

Staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Our observations found that staff interacted with people respectfully and with kindness. This included promoting and maintaining people’s right to privacy and dignity. Staff, when speaking about people spoke knowledgably and respectfully and relatives spoken with confirmed this. A relative said, “They treat him like family, they are all like a family there, and [family member] sees them as his family.” And “I am happy and comfortable with the staff; I think they are brilliant.”

Staff treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. Staff knew the people they supported as individuals. They knew their likes and dislikes and how people communicated their wishes through vocalisation, facial expressions, words and body language. Staff understood the importance of supporting people in line with their individual wishes.

Staff had been trained in equality and diversity, and this was reflected in people’s care records. Information guided staff on how people liked to be referred to including their preferred pronouns. A relative when asked how staff supported their family members protected characteristics said, “In supporting his identified needs within the service, they respect his disability.” Another relative told us, “[Family member] likes different things to [named people] and all of them, [family member] likes to do his jigsaws and look at books and paint. So, when he wants to do something, he'll ask, or he'll just do it anyway.”

Staff importantly understood it was people’s human rights to be able to express their sexuality should they choose to do so. The manager gave us examples of how staff supported people’s right to privacy.

Staff promoted people to be as independent as possible, should they choose to do this. People’s care records guided staff on people’s strengths and where people needed staff support. This included what staff support, and prompting would be needed to help people be as independent as possible. For example, helping choose their menus, help staff dish up lunch, help with laundry and getting ready for an activity in the community.

People, with staff support were prompted to make day to day choices where practicable. Observations showed that staff offered people’s choices throughout our visit and these choices included what a person wanted to eat or drink or how they wanted to spend their time. Staff used different communication approaches, such as verbal choices or visual prompts to help empower a person to make their own choice. A relative confirmed, “[Family member] will make his own choices and staff will support him to undertake his choices, within the overall service at the property and staff availability.”

Staff listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. Each person had one allocated staff member on hand throughout the day to support them. People’s records guided staff on when to raise a concern and seek external health professional advice. Staff took note of when a person was needing more support, getting anxious of becoming unwell. A relative confirmed, “They keep an eye on him for instance, he has [named health condition] and they know the warning signs and quite often use techniques to deter him away from having a [health condition]... Yes, [staff] are brilliant, I don’t know what I would do without them.”

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to deliver person-centred care. Staff had regular team meetings, handovers and supervisions where they could discuss their job roles, and any support needed to help promote a good work/life balance. Staff spoken with told us they felt valued by the management team at the service. Staff said, “Our managers say thank you to staff every day. I do feel valued.” And “My experience (is) if I have a problem I can go to [named manager] and [named manager] will speak to me in the office and try to sort it. Communication is good.”