- Care home
Hayward Care Centre
Assessment report published 23 December 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 21 October to 6 November 2025. Hayward Care Centre is a care home providing nursing and personal care to 71 people at the time of the assessment. The service can support up to 80 people who are over and under 65 yrs, have sensory impairment, physical disabilities and live with dementia. This assessment was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.
The service was now managing people’s medicines safely. Staff had medicines training and checks on their competence. Records demonstrated people had their medicines as prescribed. There were enough staff available to meet people’s needs, however, for 1 person there were not enough staff to provide them with person-centred care. Staff had been recruited safely and were provided with a range of training and regular supervision.
The service was clean and well maintained. Regular health and safety checks were completed and fire safety was checked by external contracting staff. Any equipment in the service was also checked for safety. Risks to people’s safety were identified and staff had the guidance needed to provide safe support. Care plans contained a range of information about people’s needs and were regularly reviewed by staff. Care records demonstrated people had the care and support needed to mitigate risks such as pressure damage, falls and malnutrition.
People were able to record their wishes for end-of-life care. Whilst there was no end-of-life care taking place during our assessment, staff had been provided with training on this type of care. The service had good links with relevant healthcare professionals to help them manage areas such as pain, when people reached end stages of their lives.
The provider now had effective governance systems to identify and improve shortfalls at the service. Management, staff and the provider were completing various checks and audits to identify where improvements were needed. However, governance systems had not identified shortfalls in care delivery for 1 person. An assessment has been undertaken of a service that is used by autistic people or people with a learning disability but is not registered as a specialist service. We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Leaders were not knowledgeable about this guidance which meant there were some shortfalls in 1 person’s care and support. We found a breach of the legal regulation in relation to person-centred care.
Since the last assessment there was a new registered manager. Despite their lack of knowledge regarding managing services for people with learning disabilities, they had made improvements in other areas of the service. Feedback about their approach from people, relatives and staff was positive. Staff said the whole management team at the service were approachable, inclusive and responsive. There was a service improvement plan which recorded all actions to be completed. This was monitored by the registered manager and the provider to make sure work was carried out in a timely way.
People's experience of this service
People told us they felt safe at this service. People felt the environment was safe and the approach of the staff gave them confidence they were safe. One person said, “I am always safe, people care about me and look after me.” People said there were enough staff available to meet their needs in a timely way. People had a call bell to ring for help if they needed any from staff. People did not have to wait a long time for staff to respond to their call bells. People’s feedback about food was mixed. Some people felt the food was good whilst others said the food quality needed some improvement. People had choice of meals but did not feel the food had good flavours. One person said, “The food is mostly alright, could do with more variety.” One relative said, “[Relative] seems to get on with the food ok. [Person] eats as much as they want, and they have not lost weight.” People and relatives felt the staff at the service were very caring, responsive and kind. Comments from people and relatives included, “I get on with the carers very well, they are very nice people, and they look after me very well” and “They [staff] are all lovely and kind and they do care about you. The care is very good.” People felt the service was well-led and it was a good place to live. People knew who the registered manager was and felt able to approach them if needed.