Buxton Lodge 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 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.

We observed kind and caring interactions between staff members and people. They were sharing humour, and it was evident that there was a trusting relationship between people and staff. One person told us, “They are wonderful, always cheerful and polite but with a sense of fun too.” Staff made people feel special and complimented them on their appearance. People who needed support to eat at lunchtime received this in a timely and dignified way. We also observed thank you cards from families of people who had stayed for respite care, thanking the staff for the good care their relative had received. A staff member told us, “We try as much as we can to find the time to have a chat with them. And it is not just the care staff; I have walked past a room and seen a cleaner having a great chat with a person."

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 encouraged to take part in activities around the home that they had a personal interest in. For example, one person was very creative and had taken the lead for creating decorations for celebrations within the service such as Easter and their summer fete. The person told us, “When I came in I said I liked craft work and they have allocated a corner of the lounge and I have a computer and printer and I make all the decoration for the various functions, and I can do some part time work too.” We observed one person working in the garden with the maintenance staff member preparing for the summer fete. The acting manager also gave an example of someone who had enjoyed embroidery through their life but now struggled to do this due to a medical diagnosis. He confirmed they were exploring ways in which they could support and enable the person to be able to continue this hobby in an adapted manner.

People were encouraged to maintain friendships and relationships that were personal to them. One person told us, “My friends came from church to visit me. We sat in the garden and had croissants and fresh strawberries. It’s good because it means I don’t feel separated from my congregation.” This improved the mental wellbeing of people at the service.

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

People we spoke to confirmed staff gave them various choices throughout the day where it was safe to do so. One person said, “Staff always let me choose when I want to get up, what I want to wear. They support me to have a shower every day too as that’s what I personally like to do.” We observed staff offering people the chance to take part in an activity in the communal lounge decorating cupcakes. Staff respected the decisions of people who chose not to take part. This gave people choice and control over the care they received.

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.

Staff communicated well with each other to ensure people received support when they needed it. One person told us, “If I need the toilet they always come and help me immediately.” We observed one staff member checking that everyone in the communal lounge had no immediate needs before going on their break.

Staff were aware of how individual people would communicate their immediate needs. One person was unable to vocalise loudly to staff that they needed support. Instead, they would raise their hand. Staff were aware of this and were reactive to the person any time they did this to ascertain what they required.

There had been recent improvement to staff’s wellbeing. Staff told us in the past there had been an unfair allocation of work, but the acting manager had taken action to address told us. Staff told us the nurses were now in charge of task allocation and they had found the workload had been shared more equally since.

The newly appointed manager told us he believed a caring staffing team was built on a good workplace environment. They told us, “It’s about morale to start with. If staff appear happy, positive and engaged it gives me confidence that they are good at their work and passionate, so we encourage that. We are all about positive reinforcement and making people feel good about themselves.”

The newly appointed manager had plans to encourage staff to take on more responsibility. This was in the form of creating ‘champions’, staff who would lead on a particular topic to improve the processes and knowledge around this amongst the rest of the staffing team. This included areas such as nutrition and infection prevention and control.