Woodlands Court Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence. This is the first assessment since the service was re-registered under a different provider name. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

This service scored 58 (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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

The provider used the referral form or local authority support plan, shared when placements are commissioned by the local authority, to assess people’s suitability for admission to the home, ensure it could meet their needs and help create initial care plans and risk assessments. However, we saw no evidence the provider completed their own assessments, to ensure what was documented on externally completed ones was up to date and accurate, which would be best practice.

Although documentation did not clearly indicate people and/or relatives and been involved in the assessment process, the presence of personalised information about people, their lives and needs suggested conversations had taken place

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. Overall, they did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards. However, record keeping and guidance was not always in place or of sufficient detail.

We found improvements were needed with the recording of people’s food and fluid intake. Records of how much people had drank each day were kept. However, no fluid intake targets had been set; staff were unaware how much people should be drinking. There was also no clear guidance in place on what staff should do if people were not drinking enough.

Food charts were used to record what people had eaten. However, these lacked detail, often not stating the amount of food provided, or how much of this people had eaten. Where people are at risk of weight loss, this level of information is important and is often requested by dieticians when deciding on a treatment plan. The registered manager took action during the assessment to address food and fluid recording, and we noted some improvements when we completed our 3rd site visit.

Overall, people spoke positively about the provision of nutrition and hydration. People told us they received a choice at meal time and were given enough to eat and drink. Comments included, “The food is fine. There is a choice at every meal time” and “I think the food is very good. I get plenty to eat and I am offered seconds. There is always a choice at each meal time.”

Regular checks and audits were completed by kitchen staff to ensure they met required legislation. The home had a food hygiene rating of 4 out of a maximum score of 5, which had been awarded in January 2025. This indicated good compliance with food hygiene standards.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

We received a number of positive testimonials from professionals who worked with the home. A social worker stated, “I have been impressed by the care home's responsiveness and willingness to accommodate my needs, whether it's for capacity assessments or other professional requirements. The staff have always been pleasant and helpful, and they have demonstrated a strong commitment to working collaboratively with other professionals.” A healthcare professional added, “There is strong and positive working relationship with the registered manager, deputy manager and the wider team. Communication is open and clear.”

Teamworking between staff was effective. They shared information and updates about people with each other to ensure a consistent approach in how care and support was provided to people

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

People had access to a range of medical professionals, including a General Practitioner (GP), district nurses, dieticians and speech and language therapists (SaLT). A GP ward round book was used to document who the GP saw each week and any feedback or actions generated from these visits.

Referrals to medical and other healthcare professionals, were stored within a dedicated file. From reviewing this, we noted the provider was proactive in seeking assessments for people when any issues or concerns were noted. For example, when one person was beginning to show signs of struggling to chew their food a referral had been made to SaLT. Another person had been declining to eat recently and had started to lose weight and had been referred to a dietician.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They did not always ensure that outcomes were positive and consistent, or that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

People’s care plans contained a section titled, ‘Care Intervention - is the care intervention achieving the desired outcome for the resident’. However, it was not clear what the outcome was; there was no information documented to state whether the desired outcome was being achieved, nor how this would or was being measured. Instead, each person’s care plan contained the same standardised text which said, ‘current care interventions are working towards achieving the desired outcomes. Staff continue to put [person’s name] at the centre of his / her care needs to ensure they feel valued supported’.

The current process for documenting wounds was confusing; it was difficult to track if improvements were being made. Staff were completing body maps to record marks, bruises or wounds noted on people. However, after documenting these initially, subsequent body maps often stated, ‘refer to previous body map for older marks’. As a result, it was not clear if the mark, bruise or wound had healed or was still present. We raised this with the registered manager, who took action to ensure staff utilised body maps effectively moving forwards.

Where people had active pressure wounds, monthly monitoring had been completed using the provider’s key performance indicator tool. This listed each person, any active pressure sores, current treatments and any identified improvements.

The provider respected people’s rights when delivering care and treatment. However, they did not always tell people about their rights around consent and did not always consult people’s next of kin or family where people were deemed to lack capacity.

People’s care files contained consent forms, which covered a range of areas including consent to care and treatment, use of their photograph and access to their records by professionals. Where people had capacity to consent, we found these had been signed and dated.

If people lacked capacity to provide consent, the form stated their next of kin and/or family would be consulted. However, these consultations had not been documented.

Where people lack capacity to consent, unless they have previously appointed a lasting power of attorney (LPA) to make health and welfare decisions on their behalf, any decisions need to made by following the best interest process. This involves a group of people, often the provider, family members and relevant professionals, meeting to discuss decisions which need to be made, and agreeing what is in the persons best interest. We found no evidence within care files these meetings had taken place.

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) are a legal framework designed to protect people who lack capacity to consent to their care arrangements, and ensure any deprivation of their liberty is necessary, proportionate, and in their best interests. Providers are required to submit DoLS applications to the local authority where people lack capacity and are being deprived of their liberty in some way, for example, not being able to leave the care home without support. The provider had applied for DoLS as and where necessary. We saw evidence DoLS assessments had been chased up, if not completed in a timely way.