Ivy House Residential 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.

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 65 (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.

People told us they were supported by kind and caring staff. One person told us, “I’m quite happy here. The staff are kind.” Another person said, “Staff are just lovely; They look after us really well.” We observed staff interacted with people in a friendly and warm manner and checked people were comfortable. For example, we observed staff adjusted a person’s position to help them feel more comfortable.

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 had shared details of their life history and the things that were important to them, such as any religious beliefs and these were recorded in their care plans. Staff we spoke with knew people well and told us about their life history and what they enjoyed talking about. This helped to demonstrate people were treated as individuals as staff knew what was important to each person.

People appreciated the steps staff took to help them celebrate special events such as birthdays. For example, one person told us, “Well, the tea they put on for birthdays is amazing. They did it for [name of person] and their family. All these lovely little cakes and sandwiches on a cake stand and then the birthday cake with candles on. It was just lovely.”

People’s independence was promoted. Staff spoke about how they supported people and encouraged people to do things for themselves. Care plans included details of how to support people maintain or improve their independence. We observed people who used mobility aids to help them walk independently always had these within reach, to enable them to maintain their independence.

People received visitors and they were made welcome. People and their relatives commented on the warm, family environment that had developed at Ivy House Residential Care Home. We observed one person returned from a short stay in hospital to a warm welcome from people and staff and a meal was prepared for them.

People told us they enjoyed the varied activities available at Ivy House Residential Care Home. One person said, “We had a wonderful viola soloist come. We also had a singer, but he sang songs from shows that none of us knew. At Easter families came in and all the children collected eggs. It was lovely. And the viola player, well he could really make it sing.” Another person told us, “There’s always books and jigsaws to do and sometimes people come in.”

The provider listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. However, staff had not always acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

We observed staff were available to respond to people throughout the day, and most, but not all people told us staff attended to them quickly. Records showed that medical advice had not always been sought in a timely manner when there had been an accident. This meant actions and involvement from other healthcare professionals that could minimise any discomfort and to address any health concerns had not always been taken at the time of incidents.

The provider had not always supported or enabled staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff told us they were happy working at Ivy House Residential Care Home and they had meetings with their manager to review their performance and a chance to discuss any issues.

Staff had not completed training to help ensure they provided person-centred care in line with the latest good practice. For example, only 4 staff had completed training in person-centred care, however this had either expired or needed to be refreshed.