North Court 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.

Maven Healthcare took over the running of North Court from the previous provider in January 2024. Under the previous provider we rated this key question Good. At this assessment the rating has remained Good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 70 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity.

One person told us, “They are very caring and if they see someone getting into trouble they help them, staff always treat me with respect. Staff definitely get 10 out of 10.” Another said, “It is alright, staff are pretty good. They always make sure I have a drink, if I am late getting up someone comes and check that I am alright.”

Staff 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 told us that staff knew them well and their needs and preferences. We observed that staff had a good rapport with people and supported them to make choices about where they spent their time and what they did through the day. The provider had recently increased the numbers of activity staff and people had access to a varied programme of activities and social events. A member of staff told us, “We use our knowledge of people. Downstairs there are some group activities but more one to one with people. If people don’t want to take part, they don’t have to. We put ourselves in their shoes.”

People were very positive about the activities and the events on offer. We observed a number of people going out on the day of our visit and others enjoyed the music session and dancing in one of the communal areas. One person told us, “The activity lady bought me a sun hat in town today, I have just been in hospital for a cataract op and have to wear sun glasses, I was stunned, she checked if it looked alright, she did it in a nice way and she went the extra mile.” A relative told us, “The entertainment manager is wonderful with them all and goes beyond, escorts them to hospital on routine appointments. They have increased the entertainment people with 1 up and 1 down, providing entertainment on weekends.”

Efforts were made to promote people’s independence and choice in their daily lives, but the ongoing building works meant that this was not consistently implemented.

People told us their care was delivered in a way that met their preferences. At mealtimes people were supported to be as independent as they were able. Staff encouraged people to do as much as they could for themselves.

The planned refurbishment will ultimately improve peoples experience and comfort. People told us about examples of good practice, but we also observed that some of the refurbishment works were impacting on people’s independence and control.

One relative told us, “They try to keep [my relative] independent they always associated their room as being a [specific number] so when they moved whilst being decorated, they took the room number and picture with them, it was very personal. It didn’t impact them.” Whilst this was a positive example of promoting independence, we observed that the majority of rooms did not have any identifying features, and the majority of bathrooms and toilets did not have information to support people to orientate themselves around the service. We raised our concerns about the impact of this on people living with dementia and the provider told us that they would act and ensure that pictures would be put into place to assist with orientation. On the third day of our inspection, they had started to address the areas we had raised.

The provider 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.

Staff used a number of monitoring tools to review people’s wellbeing, such as pain management tools. Call bells were answered promptly. Staff spent time with people responding when they were showing signs of distress or discomfort. One person told us that they received pain relief if they needed it, “I only have to ask for it.’’ Another person said, “I like it here. It is nice. Not perfect but it is nice.”

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Staff told us that they enjoyed working at the service and that they worked well as a team. Staff welcomed the investment made by the new provider. They could see the improvements already made to the homes environment and were optimistic about other changes such as increased staffing in areas such as activities. One told us, “The new owners are much better They are more [people] focussed.” Another said, “A lot has changed here. They listen to us, are supportive and make changes.”