Rowland House 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 remained Good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

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

People were assessed prior to moving into the service to help ensure that Rowland House Care Home was a suitable place for them to live and that staff could meet their needs. A relative told us of their family member moving in, “Everything went smoothly, and I was updated on every step even though I wasn’t there.”

The interim manager told us they had recently assessed a person wishing to move into the service. They said, “I have considered whether [person] would fit in with the other residents and think [person] would be perfect. I spoke with some of our residents after I had met [person] to discuss this.”

Management and staff planned and delivered people’s care and treatment in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

The provider’s speech and language therapist (SaLT) visited the service on a monthly basis to review people’s eating and hydration needs. This helped ensure people’s communication and swallowing needs were safely and effectively supported and tailored to people’s individual needs. Staff also undertook dysphagia (choking risk) training based on NHS standards.

In addition, staff worked with the local Huntingdon’s specialist nurse to help ensure that the care provided to people with a neurological condition was both appropriate and up to date.

Management and staff worked well across teams and services to support people. This included working collaboratively to meet people’s changing needs. One person was on a modified diet, but with SaLT input and oversight was gradually moving back to a soft diet. Staff were working with SaLT to monitor and feedback on progress.

In addition, staff worked with the local district nursing team and physiotherapist. Where people were nearing the end of their life or on palliative care, staff had a link with the local hospice.

We heard that the GP practice was not supporting the service sufficiently. The interim manager told us, “I am thinking of raising a safeguarding. I have emailed the GP to ask for a review of people’s medicines and received no response. I’ve also contacted the GP to ask for support with best interest decisions and general reviews and regular visits, but again no response.” We had similar feedback from a relative who told us the GP practice was often slow at providing information to them.

People were supported with food, hydration and medicines suitable for their needs and their health. Staff reviewed people’s care needs regularly to check for deterioration or changes, and people’s care plans were reviewed, updated or amended as appropriate.

Staff were good at contacting external healthcare professional support when needed. One relative told us, “They did not hesitate to call the ambulance when [person] was unwell.”

People’s care plans recorded their nutrition and hydration needs. For example, if a person required a modified diet or modified liquids. The information was clearly set out for staff to be able to follow easily. A relative told us, “[Person’s name] needs their food mashed and liquidised which they (staff) always do."

Staff monitored people’s care and treatment to help ensure that people received the most appropriate care, using the expertise of external health care professionals such as the provider’s speech and language therapist. A relative told us, “[Person’s name] is prone to infections and staff haven’t always picked up which was frustrating. Since [interim manager name] has taken over staff are a lot better and notice these things more.”

People had good information in their care plans on equipment needed to support them with their health and wellbeing. For example, one person had a palm splint for their hands and there was evidence of skin integrity being recorded. Other people had details about the sling type needed when using a hoist to transfer them. People had been assessed by the physiotherapist and district nurses.

People were not always assessed for their capacity prior to decisions being made about restrictive practices.

We observed when people needed the use of bed rails or sensor mats and where people had capacity, they made their own decisions.

Where people did not have the capacity to decide for themselves, capacity assessments had been completed and best interests meetings held to decide if steps being taken were the least restrictive option. Although we did not find this was always the case. For example, we requested evidence of 2 people’s assessments and bests interests decisions around living in an environment with a locked door, but these were not provided to us.

Yet, other people were under a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) as it had been determined they did not have the capacity to understand the need to live in an environment that had a locked front door and all of the relevant paperwork was in place as the principles of the Mental Capacity Act had been followed.