Highfield Care Home

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• 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.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

Staff treated people with kindness and compassion. People were positive about the regular staff who supported them. Staff knocked on people’s doors and treated people. Staff encouraged people to do things for themselves. There was a new activities coordinator in place who was in the process of developing activities for people.

There was a management led culture of referring to people by room numbers. Call bells were left accessible to people and there were staff in the lounge to provide people with support. However, feedback from people about the response to call bells was mixed. Staff had not always been supported by management to provide good quality care.

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.

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

Feedback from people and relatives about the nurse’s and regular care staff was positive. One person told us, “I could not wish for nicer staff, so kind.” A relative said, “The staff are so kind and gentle.” Staff knocked before they entered people’s rooms. Staff respected people’s dignity when providing personal care, for example, always ensuring the door was closed and relatives were not in the room.

Staff treated people as individuals spoke to people in a kind and caring way. One relative told us, “I have found the staff to be kind and caring to my [relative] and to me. They have all taken the trouble to get to know and understand my [relative’s] personality, likes and dislikes, which they respect.” Another family member said, “The staff have so much patience with [my relative],taking time to explain what they are doing, which makes [my relative] less anxious.”

However, there was a management led culture of referring to people as room numbers when discussing people, rather than using people’s names. This was an area for improvement.

People were happy with the support they received from staff and told us they were supported to maintain their independence as much as possible. One person told us, “If I want to do something myself, they help me if I need it.” Staff offered people choices such as where people wanted to sit and what they wanted to drink. The cook spoke to people about what they wanted to eat for lunch. The activity co-ordinator was discussing with people what sort of activities they wanted to see in the future so they could make plans to improve the offering to people.

People’s communication needs had been assessed and staff understood how people expressed themselves, including where people did not use words to communicate.

Feedback from people was mixed. Some people told us staff responded quickly when they needed them. Comments included, “The staff seem to be okay, but they are busy.” And “Yes, the staff come when I call. The staff help me when I need them.” Where people used call bells these were left in reach so people could seek support when needed. Where people did not use a call bell staff checked on them regularly though the day to ensure people were supported. For the most part staff completed these checks as scheduled. However, in the morning when staff were very busy there were some gaps. During the day staff were available to help people who were in the main lounge and responded to people’s requests. For example, when people wanted a drink or snack.

The provider did not always the promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. Staff told us there were areas where staff needed more support to enable them to deliver the care they wanted to do. For example, staff raised concerns about communication and people needing to wait for support in the morning. However, the provider and registered manager did respond when we raised these concerns. Handover meetings were put in place to improve communication, and changes were made to staff utilization.