Stepping Stones Red Marley

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.

The provider always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Staff had developed good relationships with people built with trust and respect and a genuine care to support people well. Staff felt that their team members were caring and treated people appropriately commenting, “Positive team, compared to previous places, I can see the connections between people and staff are happy”, “Part of a family, my service users always want to talk to me and have advice and I want to be there for them” and “I enjoy the variety and each day is different, putting a smile on their face. Really rewarding.”

We observed that staff responded in a positive and caring way to people. One health and social care professional told us, “I only have praise for all staff and the service in general, I always come away from a visit feeling my service user is very lucky to be placed in such a caring and compassionate environment.” One person told us, “They are kind, and they care.”

During our inspection one person was celebrating their birthday. Staff were seen to be blowing up balloons and putting up banners for this person who would then be going out to celebrate. Staff told us, “Each person chooses how they want to celebrate their birthday; some go out, some want us to buy surprise presents and others want to go and choose their gifts with staff. One person doesn’t like to open gifts in front of others, so we leave them in her room, and they are opened over two days. One person is planning their birthday to a theme park. We celebrate however the person likes to.”

Staff had a good understanding of how to support people whilst maintaining their privacy and dignity. We saw that people chose where they wished to spend time and staff sought permission to enter people’s rooms. One healthcare professional said, “I have always seen people treated with compassion and kindness. I asked to be able to walk round the whole building to see how it was set up. I was able to observe staff unnoticed and only saw kindness and respect from staff, in the face of challenging behaviour from some of the residents.”

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

People were supported to maintain relationships that were important to them and to follow their interests and hobbies. During our inspection we saw people leaving and returning from activities including horse riding, walks and lunch. People who didn’t go out enjoyed spending time in the art room for an activity.

Staff demonstrated respect for people who preferred not to join in offered activities and chose to spend more time alone. Staff continued to offer and encourage activities to meet people’s preferences at these times or offer company. One staff told us, “[person’s name] spends a lot of time in his room, he seems really happy in his own company. We try and entice him out, but he will swear or not respond so we check on him, I sing to him, and he tells me jokes.” Another person was gently being encouraged to go out on more trips with a staff member commenting, “Has 1-1 trips out with staff, this is slowly increasing, when out he tends to sit, watch and smoke rather than make use of any community facilities. He is better when he chooses the trip and is confident about this.”

Any cultural needs or preferences people had were upheld and respected. One person told us, “When a boy I went to church but not sure now if I want to go.” One health and social care professional said, “Staff cater to everyone’s individual needs, respectfully.” We saw that one person enjoyed night fishing and was supported by staff to go overnight and do this. Another person had always wanted to see Blackpool lights and this had been arranged.

The registered manager was aware of Regulation 9A and supporting people to see their family and friends but also recognised that it was people’s choice how frequently and in what way they wanted to maintain contact with others close to them. The registered manager told us, “It is an open home for families to visit, allows private space for people around building, nice to sit out in garden, families understand that others may descend on them also.” Relatives told us that the staff helped them keep in contact with one family member saying, “Staff are bringing her over on visits and arranging occasional overnight stays for me around Red Marley. Unfortunately, [person’s name] isn't able to communicate by email, letter, [social media] or phone but I know they have tried.” One person told us “Every six weeks I go to see my relative..”

The service had a good ethos of understanding people and supporting them at a comfortable pace to increase their opportunities. The registered manager spoke about one person who had previously required multiple staff to support when they displayed certain heightened behaviours. Over time the registered manager became aware these behaviours were a result of this person not being given choice or decision-making skills and started to readdress this imbalance putting the choice back into the person’s control. The registered manager told us, “There are not many places that work with this ethos and being able to work with a level of risk management and work and learn from mistakes.. It’s now rare to have an incident to the scale it was, and she’s done so well. She rarely went out as staff were frightened to manage her but now she can be out several times a day and slowly reducing medicine..”

The provider promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People were supported to have choice and control over their own care and to make decisions about their care, treatment and wellbeing. One person said, “I choose my own food. Can go out if I want.” People kept their own keys to their bedrooms, and we observed people freely moving between spending time in the communal areas of the service and their bedrooms.

People were encouraged to maintain and increase their independence where able. One person was able to independently take a bus to their place of work, and another person would spend time out on their own and then meet staff at an agreed time. Staff told us that people were encouraged to complete daily tasks including cleaning their room and managing their own laundry. One person told us about their room, “Yes, I clean it.” For other people they did not always engage in these activities, but staff continued to prompt and support where required. One relative said, “Tried to do supported living but can’t cope on his own.”

People were encouraged to be partners and leaders in their own care and received regular meetings to reflect on their experience; ensure they were being treated with respect and share any concerns they might have. We saw that several people declined to participate in this, but it continued to be offered, or it was changed to just focus on areas the person wanted to share at that particular time.

The provider 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.

We observed interactions between staff and people who use the service and saw that these relationships were caring and compassionate, enabling staff to meet people’s needs quickly to reduce people’s discomfort and distress. One person told us, “They look after me. Take my temperature every week and my blood pressure.”

Staff completed key worker monthly reports with people which looked at how they were feeling, if they had any concerns or worries and enabled staff to have greater insight into people’s needs. One staff told us, “We have a daily handover so if people’s needs change this is told to us and if there is a new need we get a heads up prior to this happening.”

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Staff wellbeing was a priority in the service. This had a positive impact on the care they delivered to people.

The registered manager told us about the ways they worked flexibly to support staff in their roles commenting, “Do the best we can we try and help staff with working patterns, we have some who can only work 9-3 and then one is doing their NVQ to then go full time, and steps up as acting senior and is developing. Just started a process with another staff who has asked to reduce their hours so looking at this..”

Staff told us they were well supported by the registered manager. One staff said, “[registered manager name] has been tremendously supportive to me, it’s a good place to work, I have also mentored people as they have come through.” Another staff member said, “One hundred percent, I have seen this happen with flexibility and reasonable adjustments.”