Rowland House Care Home

Updated 15 September 2025

Date of assessment: 30 September 2025.

Rowland House Care Home is a service for people with an acquired brain injury or neurological conditions. There were 5 people living in the service at the time of our visit.

The service was without a registered manager. However, the provider had placed an interim manager to oversee the service. The interim manager had been in post for 3 months.

Improvements were needed to ensure staff were providing activities and meaningful opportunities on a regular basis to people. In addition, work needed to continue to embed a consistent improved culture of person-centred care to ensure it was sustained across all aspects of the service. Further work was required to develop external links and partnerships to help people stay connected with the wider community and enhance their quality of life and staff needed to be given the opportunity to be more involved in the running of the service through staff meetings.

Medicines storage arrangements needed to improve to help ensure medicines were stored in line with manufacturers guidance and some areas that were at risk of harbouring infection required action. The interim manager had, however, identified these areas as shortfalls and were already working on making the necessary changes.

People’s care plans lacked information around their life histories as well as their end of life wishes. Both would help staff to get to know people better and help provide them with greater detail to help them provide care in line with people’s preferences.

The interim manager had made positive changes to the service since being in post and staff fed back that they felt happier working at the service. They told us there were enough of them to provide care for people and that they felt management supported and listened to them.

There were good processes in place for recruitment of staff, recording and analysing accidents and incidents and reporting any issues of concern to the relevant authorities. Where external healthcare input was needed staff sought this promptly and they worked with these professionals to help provide people with the most appropriate care.

Updated 15 September 2025

People and relatives felt staff were kind and caring and they treated people as individuals, helping to ensure they were involved. However, people did not always have the opportunity to access the wider community due to an inconsistent approach from staff and the lack of facilities to enable them to be taken out safely. People were not always consulted in relation the running of the service, as staff had not considered alternative ways of inviting feedback from people who were not able to verbally communicate, although, relatives said they felt listened to when they raised any concerns. Relatives felt their family member was safe living at Rowland House Care Home and they told us that staff knew their needs. Relatives felt their family member was provided with the medicines they required, and they told us infection control practices had improved at the service. People had their capacity assessed prior to restrictive practices being placed on them and where people were moving into the service, assessments were completed to help ensure that Rowland House Care Home was a suitable place for them to live. Relatives had recognised improvements within the service since the interim manager had arrived, telling us that staff seemed happier and as such their family members were being better looked after.