Seaford Family Care

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 requires improvement.

This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 62 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The registered manager treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respectedtheir privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness andrespect. People living at the service were treated well and kindly by staff. People’s privacy and dignity were respected. A person told us, “They are caring and efficient.” A relative added, “Generally the staff on the floor are nice.” We observed several interactions between staff and people and staff were kind and gentle in their approach, taking time to speak with people. However, the registered manager did not always respond to other professionals in a timely way or consistently act on their advice and offers of support. This has been discussed in the Effective section of this report.

The registered manager 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. The registered manager and wider staff team knew people well. They were aware of the importance of treating people as individuals and supported them to live their lives as they wished. People’s bedrooms were personalised, in several cases containing people’s own furniture and always personal effects such as photographs and ornaments. People were able to move around the home and chose where they wanted to spend their time. At the front of the service there was a conservatory where several people met each day and sat and chatted to each other. People who needed support with their mobility were similarly supported to move between the different communal areas as they wished.

The registered manager promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. People were supported and encouraged to carry out tasks and activities for themselves within the limits of safety. Staff knew the importance of keeping people as independent as possible without compromising their safety. Care plans, although most not updated for some time, did describe the areas where people could achieve things for themselves for example, washing and dressing, before then describing the areas where support were needed. People and their loved ones agreed that their independence was encouraged. A person told us, “Yes I’m encouraged to do things for myself.” A relative added, “They support with their independence.” We received similar comments from staff with one telling us, “I encourage and will let them wash themselves. I give them the flannel let them do it themselves with me close by.”

The registered manager listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. People’s immediate needs were met by a staffing team that knew them well. We saw staff supporting people at mealtimes and at other times of the day when people wanted to move from one room to another. Some people chose to spend most of their time in their bedrooms. We saw that call bells were answered as a priority and were responded to as quickly as was safe to do. Several people at the home were able to mobilise and move independently around then home however some needed support and were helped to move and to be seated near friends or other people they wanted to spend time with.

The registered manger did not care about or promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. The wellbeing of staff was not supported by the registered manager. All staff that we spoke to told us they felt unsupported and more than 1 staff member was actively considering leaving the home. Staff told us they were not confident in approaching the registered manager when they had an issue or concern with one telling us, “I’m scared that I will be punished if I speak up.” Another said, “We have no one to go to with a problem. Another problem is that confidences are breached, if someone calls in sick then everyone knows about it.” Some staff who had worked at the home for over 6 months told us they were still waiting for a supervision meeting and others who had been there longer said they had never been able to attend a team meeting. Staff turnover was high with very few staff having worked continuously at the home for more than 2 years. Another member of staff told us, “Most of us feel on edge and feel isolated.” Staff supervisions were irregular and team meetings infrequent. A staff supervision schedule document stated that staff would receive a supervision meeting every 6 months. This document however did not list staff names so it was unclear if this process was being adhered to. Staff told us that supervision meetings did not follow a regular frequency with some telling us there had not had a meeting in over 9 months. One staff member recalled being asked to complete a staff questionnaire about a year ago but again new could find no record of this. Some key messages were sent out to staff via a group mobile phone application.