Palmerston House 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.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Good. At this assessment the rating has remained Good.

This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 63 (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 home had robust policies and working practices in place to conduct assessments of people referred to the home. They also worked with people and relatives during this process as well as professionals.

One relative told us, “I was involved in developing the care plan when [person] was admitted. I gave them information about [their] medication and conditions.

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

The home had recently undertaken a review by a dementia specialist and had implemented measures to support people who use the service. Some measures included, new functional murals around the home, such as a newsstand or a café and road names down corridors to help people identify locations.

There were good levels of specialist training to support adults living with dementia. Relatives and professionals shared positive feedback on how staff supported individuals including reductions in distressed behaviours.

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.

There was good evidence of effective communication between people, services and professionals to ensure continuity of care. A professional told us, “Palmerston is a very good care service and we work with them in a good partnership fashion, with honesty, respect and good practice .There is always collaborative working and information is shared accordingly.”

The provider did not always support people to manage their health and wellbeing, so people could not always maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff did not always support people to live healthier lives.

Whilst there was good practice in managing health conditions and partnership working with other professionals, improvements could be made when it came to activities on offer. There was an activity coordinator in place and whilst there were opportunities on offer these did not appear to be widely taken up by people using the service. This is important as stimulating activities contribute to physical, social, emotional and mental wellbeing.

One relative told us, “I feel that there's very little stimulation in the home though with few activities.”

We raised this with the registered manager. They outlined how this had already been identified and shared their planned improvements, such as enhanced activities assessments to be carried out along with additional activities planned soon.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it.

Whilst good care was observed and there were positive outcomes that the provider could evidence, we found gaps in monitoring practice. For example, one person was assessed as needing their vision monitored by staff for signs of deterioration, however there were no signs listed or actions staff should take should there be any concerns. Similar gaps were found in this person’s diabetes care.

We found gaps in a repositioning chart for multiple people, for example staff supported a person to turn every 4 hours, however on one day there had only been 3 recorded turns over the course of the day. Similar gaps were found with this person’s meal charts. The registered manager had already identified these gaps. They gave assurances that reporting and recording would be improved to accurately reflect the care being delivered.

The provider did not always effectively gain consent from people who use the service.

Whilst care observed was delivered with respect, dignity and consent, the provider did not always capture this effectively.

We found gaps in captured consent regarding photographs being taken, information sharing with health care professionals, care provision and CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television).

When we raised this with the registered manager they accepted these findings. They also showed the inspection team that this had been highlighted by their own internal monitoring systems and steps were being taken to address these gaps.