Archived: Napier Lodge 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 service 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 inadequate.

This meant people were not treated with compassion and there were breaches of dignity. Staff lacked compassion.

The service was in breach of legal regulations as people were not being treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 35 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service did not always treat people with empathy and compassion, or respect their privacy and dignity.

The concerns we found about people's safety showed there was a lack of understanding from staff as to how to care for people in a compassionate and dignified way. There were open safeguarding concerns about the poor treatment of people by staff at the time of the inspection. Action was being taken in response to these concerns to ensure the safety of people.

We observed staff did not consistently engage with people beyond tasks they carried out such as offering drinks or personal care. However, we also saw occasions where staff displayed compassion to people and supported them in a caring way.

Care plans were not always written in a respectful way. For example, 1 person had a care plan named ‘compliance’ and another for ‘inappropriate behaviour’. These terms were not respectful ways to refer to people. Records used to monitor people’s behaviour also demonstrated times where staff had not responded to people with understanding and compassion.

The service 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.

People’s care plans held limited information about their unique characteristics, life history and communication needs. This meant we could not be assured staff could be guided by peoples’ care records to support people effectively. However, some staff had got to know people and their individual preferences, and this was clear in their interactions and in the way they spoke about people.

We observed a lack of meaningful social activities and stimulation to meet people’s social needs and records reflected this. However, staff supported 1 person to go to church. The manager told us of their plans to make improvements in this area.

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

There was no evidence people had been involved in planning their care. Review meetings that involved staff and people were not held.

Staff made decisions about people’s care without properly consulting them. For example, staff decided to move a person to a different bedroom as they felt this may reduce the risk of them falling. However, this caused the person to become distressed, and their actions demonstrated they did not want to move rooms. We also noted a person was very quiet and when we asked staff if there could be a reason, they told us it was because their beard had been completely shaved rather than trimmed as they had wished. We also saw other examples where people were not supported to have control and choice, such as everyone being given the same drink at lunch and frequent checks and clinical observations being completed without a clear rationale.

Care plans did not always outline what people could do for themselves or how staff could support people in being more independent.

Leaders were unable to demonstrate how they monitored the quality of care and whether people were supported to have independence, choice and control. This meant there was a culture in the home of institutionalised care. The regional clinical manager told us they would start to involve people going forwards and work with staff to improve the culture.

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

We saw incidents where staff did not respond well to needs and increased peoples’ frustration. For example, 1 person who was visually impaired was trying to get to the dining area, but chairs were in their path. The staff member attempted to move the person despite being told to instead move the chairs. Later, the person asked for a razor, but this was not provided. Instead, staff followed the person up and down the corridor for approximately 30 minutes. This caused the person to become frustrated. Another person became frustrated about having to wait to use the lift, they told us this was a frequent occurrence and they did not understand why.

The service did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff.

Prior to our inspection, a partner agency told us staff had not been well supported regarding cultural differences between them. The regional manager echoed this and told us they had begun work to support staff more effectively. The staff we spoke with did not raise any concerns and said they felt well supported by the management team.