The Windmill Care Home Ltd

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.

This is the first assessment for this service since the service name change. The provider has remained the same. At our last assessment of this key question we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has changed to inadequate. This meant people were not treated with compassion and there were breaches of dignity. Staff caring attitudes had significant shortfalls.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to dignity and respect.

This service scored 30 (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.

We received mixed feedback about how staff treated people, one person told us, “I’m happy here, there are 4 staff I really like and have a joke with, I start it and they finish it. It’s good to have a joke.”

A second person explained, “The staff are ok, always busy and don’t often talk to you. The people that complain and moan or need more care get the most attention. I understand, but others like me get ignored.”

Whilst we did not see staff providing unkind care and support, we observed there was limited interaction with people. For example, we observed at lunchtime a person being supported with their meal. The staff member repeatedly left the individual to attend to other tasks, so another member of staff stepped in to provide assistance. People’s dignity was not always upheld, we saw people with dried food on their clothes.

We saw people’s care records had not been completed in a dignified way and some entries were derogatory with one entry describing a person as, ‘patronising.’

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

A staff member told us, “I don’t think this place should be open. Care shouldn’t be run as a business. Residents get the bare minimum here in every possible way. Like food, toiletries and care.”

A second member of staff described the way care is provided as a, “conveyor belt” and it was not person-centred.

Our observations showed staff to be providing more task-focused rather than personalised care. Daily notes of the care were also task-focused and people’s preferences were not clearly detailed in their care plans.

The provider did not promote people’s independence, so people did not know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People did not have a choice about where they chose to spend their day. Three people’s care records stated they should be in the main lounge so staff could observe them.

One person’s care plan stated they would ask to go to their bedroom in the afternoon for a nap and preferred quieter areas, but staff should encourage them to remain in communal areas to promote social interaction. During our visits to the service, we observed this person to be in the communal lounge which was busy and noisy. There were 3 televisions on and music playing.

One person told us they spent most of the time in their room as it was too noisy downstairs.

People’s routines were driven by shift patterns rather than personal preferences. One person told us, “Sometimes I get a choice of when I get up, normally I like to get up about 08.30-09.00am and go to bed about 11pm. Sometimes they wake me up at the crack of dawn, 05.30-06.00am.”

Meeting minutes showed night staff expected people to be in bed before their shift, while day staff expected them up by the start of theirs. Discussions focused on staff routines, not individuals, and this went unchallenged by management, including a director for the provider.

There was a lack of provision for people to pursue their interests or to go on visits away from the service. When we asked 1 person what activities they could access they replied, “Well none really.”

One relative told us it would be nice if people could access the garden more.

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

One person told us they had to get 1 of their relatives to call staff to tell them to support them to the toilet as they had been waiting for so long. A second person called one of the inspection team over and told them they had been waiting for the toilet for a while. They told us they had informed a staff member who said they would take them, but they never returned.

Over the course of our visits to the service, twice we had to alert staff to people having been incontinent.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

People did not always receive care which was safe or person-centred. The provider did not always recognise or listen to staff when they requested extra resources they needed to undertake their roles effectively. One member of staff told us, “No one listens and it’s not right.”

Some staff reported poor morale within the team. A member of staff told us how they felt isolated when they first started in their role rather than being paired with a member of existing staff to learn their role. A second staff member described how kitchen staff got, “special treatment” compared to staff in care and domestic roles.

The provider had failed to provide specialist support to staff after a serious incident. One member of staff told us the only support offered was by another agency involved. Another member of staff said the director, who was a frequent presence in the service, had not checked in with staff individually to ask how they were feeling after the incident. No formal debriefs were in place to support staff after serious incidents had occurred.