The Gables

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture. This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated good: This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

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.

The provider had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities. The Gables objectives are to provide a comfortable, secure and stable environment which provides opportunities for people to enhance their quality of life, and where individuality of care, support and dignity is paramount. The operations manager told us the key values of the service were providing respectful care and support and ensuring people are recognised for their individual uniqueness. They told us they liked to lead by example by having an open-door policy. They said, “Care should be delivered to the person as though they are your most prized possession”. One staff member told us, “I love it here, everyone is friendly, happy to help each other, its teamwork, everyone works as a team. Everyone loves to do things and make a difference, there is good training here, everyone is so nice, it’s a nice place to work”.

The provider had inclusive leaders who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They did so with integrity, openness and honesty. There had been some recent changes in the management team at The Gables, and leaders were in the process of implementing and embedding some new audit and leadership processes. The operations manager and leaders were open and honest during the inspection and shared some of the challenges they have overcome, what actions had been taken and where they had seen improvements. People, relatives, staff and healthcare professionals were complimentary about the operations manager, leaders and staff team. One person told us, “The manager is often seen around the home, they are approachable and I would say I see them at least once a day. I wouldn’t change anything about the home, and I would thoroughly recommend it’. Staff shared positive views, one staff member told us, “I feel as though I'm listened to and I have always been given support when I’ve needed it”.

The provider fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard. People had the opportunity to share their views of the service through regular resident’s meetings and surveys. Leaders were open and transparent with sharing where concerns had not always been managed appropriately and additional measures of gathering feedback had been implemented. For example, through additional surveys and email exchange directly with the operations manager. Staff had opportunities to make suggestions and contribute to the development of the service at staff meetings, surveys and through the provider's supervision procedure. Staff were confident they could speak up if they needed to and felt they could rely on leaders to listen and respond. Information about how to speak up, including safeguarding contacts were available to people and staff. There was also a contact number where staff could share any concerns anonymously. Leaders were open and responsive throughout the inspection process. The operations manager understood their responsibilities under the duty of candour. The duty of candour is to be open and transparent, and it sets out specific guideline's providers must follow if things go wrong with care and treatment.

The provider valued diversity in their workforce. They worked towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who worked for them. The provider’s recruitment policies and procedures helped ensure staff experienced equitable treatment. The service had an equality and diversity policy in place to guide equitable and fair recruitment and selection procedures. Staff had received training in relation to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and told us they felt respected and valued at work.

The provider had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and were starting to embed some new governance processes. They used these to promote and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. Some of these processes still required further embedding as it had not always highlighted some of the issues we found during the inspection process in relation to clinical care plans, inconsistent risk scoring, care plan updates and daily documentation monitoring. However, care plans and risk scoring were updated during our site visits and shared with us. Leaders had planned additional training and monitoring to guide staff with improvements on daily documenting of peoples care needs. An action plan with timescales for these improvements were shared with us.

The provider understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services worked seamlessly for people. They shared information and learning with partners and collaborated for improvement. Healthcare professional’s shared how improvements had been made over the last few months with communication and information sharing. One healthcare professional said, “I’ve seen 100% improvement, suggested changes are implemented straight away”. They gave an example of how they had advised staff on changes to a persons end of life care and how this was implemented without delay. They told us, “Everything has improved, I can have open and honest talks and they listen and take action”. People were encouraged to maintain relationships with those who were important to them and engage in activities, which were meaningful and improved their quality of life. The provider had a number of external agencies which regularly visited the service to offer entertainment and interactive sessions.

The provider focused on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contributed to safe, effective practice and research. Where incidents had occurred, these had been shared in staff meetings to highlight any lessons learnt and opportunities for improvement has been discussed. There was evidence of changes which had been made to the service to make improvements and to provide additional training for staff where there had been identified shortfalls.