Pine Tree Court Care Home

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 changed to Requires Improvement.

Requires improvement: This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 60 (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 did not always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity.

Whilst we observed some staff interacting very kindly with people, however, we also observed other staff were more task focussed and did not engage with people who were showing signs of being distressed. We found records did not describe people compassionately and often described people negatively, for example, one incident form described a person as ‘rude’. People’s records documented they were ‘fed’ and ‘put to bed’ which were not dignified descriptors. We received feedback from healthcare professionals where they described staff as lacking knowledge about people and not understanding recommendations. One visiting healthcare professional told us, “One person needed assistance from a nurse. I was unable to locate a member of staff to provide assistance. When someone was finally found, the person had forgotten they required support.”

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not always take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Although we found people’s care records were individualised and contained good amounts of detail about people and their preferences, we did not see this corroborated in how staff interacted with people or in people’s environments. We found some people had exceptionally personalised rooms and had been involved in picking out their preferred paint colours, while other rooms contained little or no personal effects or decoration. We found name plaques outside people’s rooms were not personalised and were feminine in appearance, irrespective of their personal preferences and there was no evidence to show people had been involved in choosing the backgrounds of their name plaques. Managers had not considered this when we discussed it with them but told us they would change them to be more gender neutral.

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

We observed the new managers were making progress with supporting people to be more independent and have greater choice and control. Managers were working to provide greater opportunities for people and had recently held a meeting for people living at the service where they expressed different activities they wanted and outings they wanted to go on. The managers were implementing a key worker system, which would help ensure people had a dedicated staff member who would be their advocate and promote increased autonomy.

The provider did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

We observed one person tell staff they were in pain, but the staff member dismissed them and did not escalate to the nurses they required pain relief. This meant the person’s immediate needs were not met and indicated staff were not confident in how to escalate concerns to the nurses. This had an impact on the person as their pain was not acknowledged or treated. We found in the persons records for the day previous, they had also been recorded as being in pain, but when we looked to see if they had been given any pain relief we were unable to find this had been given. We also did not find any evidence in handover documents this need had been shared with staff. Feedback we received from staff indicated they knew how to escalate concerns if people’s condition deteriorated, one staff member told us, “I would go and find the nurse and ensure the person received the care they needed. If I could not locate the nurse I would speak to the manager. If the person was in severe pain, health deteriorated, I would call 111, GP or 999” and “I would tell staff about the pain management and any health concerns about the individual. This would also be shared at handover.” However, this was not observed during the inspection.

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

The provider ensured staff had access to training, there were opportunities for staff to develop and there were promotion opportunities available. Staff told us they were happy working at the service. Staff had adequate breaks and access to a staff room. The manager told us they supported people when they needed to work flexibly and held team building days. We observed staff attend a training session which was made accessible for people by being offered remotely for those with children who could not attend in person.