Amber House Residential 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.

This service scored 55 (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 treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

People received kind and compassionate care from a staff team who, despite challenges and pressures, demonstrated warmth, genuine commitment, and a clear desire to support people well. It was apparent staff knew people well and took time to understand their preferences, routines, and communication styles. However, this knowledge was not always recorded in the relevant documentation, meaning it could not be easily reviewed or built upon as people’s needs or wishes changed.

Staff spoke with people in a warm and respectful manner. Our observations showed staff were sensitive to people’s individual needs, but the number of people requiring support at any one time meant staff were visibly stretched and challenged. Despite this, they tried their best to ensure everyone felt included and listened to.

Overall people felt staff treated them well. One person said, “I find the staff excellent - getting me up showering, dressing, helping me go to bed.” Another person said, “If I ask for something they [staff] do their best to provide it.”

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

Staff knew people well, which enabled them to provide support that met people’s basic needs and wishes. However, because detailed, full and accurate information was not always recorded, it was not always possible to support people in a way that fully reflected their preferences, communication styles, and daily routines. Staff adapted their approach based on their own knowledge, but this was not consistently supported by robust documentation.

There was limited information about people’s life histories and what was most important to them. This restricted staff’s ability to provide truly tailored and individualised care and meant opportunities to enhance people’s wellbeing and personal experiences could be missed.

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

People were supported to be as independent as possible, but because people’s needs were not always fully assessed, there was a risk of creating unnecessary dependencies. Staff did not always have clear information about people’s abilities, which limited their understanding of what individuals could safely and confidently achieve on their own. This meant people were not always supported to reach their full potential for independence.

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

Staff knew people’s needs well; however, they were not always able to respond to people’s needs in a timely way due to the difficulties they described with staffing levels and competing tasks. We observed staff supporting people with their needs, but on some occasions, this happened after a period of waiting, during which people became distressed or had to repeatedly ask for support. Comments we received echoed these observations, confirming that people were not always able to have their immediate needs met promptly.

One person said, “I’m usually the last person to get my dinner.” A relative told us, “I feel there is enough staff most of the time, but there are times when it’s hard for the staff to cope. Sometimes it can be chaotic.”

Staff member comments we received included, “Some staff say they can’t do care plan updates as they don’t have time, and we don’t always have our breaks because there is not enough staff. There are not enough staff at nighttime.” Another staff member said, “We have 4 residents who need support to eat, and then we have to support people to use the toilet at the same time, as well as doing the medication.”

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

Staff were supported, but not always to a degree that helped them feel confident in their roles or contributed to consistent, good practice across the team. Staff told us they received training and supervision, but this was not always delivered in a timely or consistent manner, which limited its effectiveness.

However, one staff member told us about a new ‘employee of the month’ initiative. The deputy manager and provider confirmed this had recently been introduced, and they were hopeful it would help improve staff morale and promote a stronger sense of being valued within the team.