Brendoncare St Giles View

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture. This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated Good. This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

This service scored 79 (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 had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

The providers statement of purpose and strategy clearly set out their values and strategic objectives for the service. The provider’s aim was to provide the care and support older people wanted.

The provider had a focus on learning and improvement. Leaders told us learning had taken place in relation to how the amalgamation of the 2 staffing teams had been managed. They recognised the issues in relation to people’s experience of living in the home and were actively working on them in partnership with the landlord. A staff member said, “We speak about the vision often; we have come a long way from merging two homes and adapting to each other to being where we are today so I am positive we can continue to improve.”

There had been instability in the management of the service since it had opened. Two registered managers, interim managers and one of the 2 clinical deputy managers had left. However, a new experienced manager had been appointed in May 2025, who has just registered with CQC. A second clinical deputy had also been appointed and was due to commence work the week after the site visits. This meant there was now a stable management team to lead the service forwards. There had also been a change this year in the director of operations who was also the nominated individual for the provider.

The registered manager was supported in their role by the provider’s head office and members of the senior leadership team provided regular oversight and support to the home. Senior leaders demonstrated a good knowledge about the history of the service and an understanding of the current issues and how they were being addressed. Clinical staff were supported in their role both by the deputy managers and the providers head of quality and practice development.

The provider held events to support and develop their management teams. There had recently been a home management team support day, focused on governance at home level and a deputy development day focused on clinical governance.

The provider fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

The provider had processes and policies in place to enable staff to speak up. The speaking up policy was being reviewed to provide an additional mechanism for whistleblowers to raise concerns using a digital form anonymously. This was about to be publicised with posters promoting a QR code that linked to an anonymous online form, which would immediately be received by members of the senior leadership team. Staff could also raise issues via their supervisions staff meetings and the annual home forum when staff and senior leadership met to discuss issues and the employee engagement survey. Staff said they felt able to speak up.

The provider valued diversity in their workforce. They worked towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who worked for them.

The provider’s statement of purpose set out theirequality and diversity statement. They aimed to promote opportunities for everyone and to positively value diversity. We saw the provider recruited staff and volunteers from a variety of diverse backgrounds and where needed workplace adjustments for staff had been made. The provider worked with external organisations as needed to seek guidance and advice on how best to support staff. The provider was also in the process of rolling out the ‘Oliver McGowan training in learning disability and autism’ for all staff.

The provider had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They acted on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and shared this securely with others when appropriate.

There were clear roles, responsibilities and accountability for staff at all levels of the service up to the provider’s board of trustees who reviewed the performance of the service at their quarterly meetings.

The provider had an audit schedule to monitor various aspects of the service and incidents and complaints were analysed for trends. Any identified issues from audits, trends analysis and compliance quality visits were then added to the service development plan for the service so progress could be monitored. The provider had also completed a ‘mock’ CQC inspection.

The provider was undertaking a project to transfer and further strengthen their current audit processes by moving them onto the same platform as their new incident reporting system. As part of this project, they were developing a new ‘Quality of life’ audit tool to assess and measure all aspects of people’s experience at the home. The tools had been trialled at the home earlier in the year and as a result was being further refined. We saw staff were undertaking a range of actions identified from the audit to make improvements for people.

The landlord for the building also did an audit of the service in June 2025, and the provider was waiting for the landlord’s dementia specialist from their quality team to complete a further assessment with them in October 2025 which will contribute to their dementia action plan.

However, the audits staff completed had not identified the issues we found with cleaning records and medication, which were brought to the provider’s attention for them to address.

The provider understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services worked seamlessly for people. They shared information and learning with partners and collaborated for improvement.

Staff engaged with key stakeholders and services for people, such as health and social care professionals. They also worked with the local hospice who had provided some palliative care training for staff.

The home currently had 5 volunteers working with them providing people with companionship, assisting with social activities, supporting activities of daily living, and offering additional help with administrative tasks.

Staff engaged with the local community to identify opportunities and experiences for people. Staff had facilitated people attending Winchester Cathedral for a dementia friendly cathedral tour organised by the local Rotary club. The home was also represented on local groups for older people.

The provider had a strong focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They always encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contributed to safe, effective practice and research.

The provider was involved in a number of applications and research projects. The provider had joined the ENRICH (Enabling Research in Care Homes) network. This is a national network which connects care homes with researchers to facilitate research within care settings, to improve people’s health and well-being.

The provider is one of 90 care homes currently participating in a university led research trial into how best to treat malnutrition for people in care homes. The provider’s new dementia lead nurse had recently been accepted onto a year's research project in order to assess how their role could enhance people's care with the provider. The provider had also arranged clinical resilience training course for nurses, with a focus on learning and why incidents have happened.