St David's 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.

This is the first assessment for this 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 60 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Whilst staff treated people with kindness and respect, some of the terminology they used within care records and when speaking about people was not appropriate. Staff did not use this when speaking with people and we alerted the registered manager to this so that this could be addressed.

People told us they liked the care staff and nurses. Their comments included, “Staff are kind, polite and caring”, “They are lovely” and “There is an air of friendliness.”

We saw staff treating people well. They offered them choices, took time to listen to responses and approached them in a respectful way.

People told us they could choose the gender of care workers supporting them with personal care. They explained their privacy was respected and staff closed curtains and doors when supporting them.

People were treated as individuals. Staff recorded their needs within care plans. These included information about people’s background, culture, religion and identity. People told us they were supported with these needs and had opportunities to celebrate this part of themselves, worship and eat culturally appropriate food.

Whilst people were supported to make choices about their daily lives. Some choices were impacted by other factors. For example, people could not always do things at the time of their choosing because staff were not available. Some people told us they had a specialist diet and, whilst the menu had options for this, these options were not always available. They explained they could have alternatives but expressed dissatisfaction that the menu options were often not available.

People could develop their independence and mobility with the support of the in-house physiotherapists. Although some people told us they would like more opportunities to regain skills. Comments from people included, “I thought I would be supported with rehabilitation, but that has not happened” and “You are safe here, but sometimes staff stop you doing things for yourself.”

There was a range of organised social activities and people told us they were encouraged to participate. They told us they enjoyed these.

Staff did not always respond to people’s immediate needs. People reported waiting for staff when they needed them, including instances of call bells not being answered, or staff responding but going away again and not helping when needed. The provider’s representatives told us that their own call bell analysis showed that call bells were answered and that this feedback represented people’s perception of waiting for care rather than calls being unanswered by staff.

People using the service and relatives told us staff responded when people became unwell or needed medical assistance. People had portable alarms which they could wear when moving around the home.

The provider did not always support workforce wellbeing. Staff raised concerns about communication and support. Some staff told us they did not feel leaders listened when they raised concerns about their wellbeing. Staff told us they did not always receive meaningful supervision sessions where they could reflect on their work. A staff member said, “We only have supervision when we do something wrong.” Staff told us they did not get paid for time when they completed online training courses. They felt this was not fair. Staff told us they were sometimes asked to work in different roles, such as the kitchen or housekeeping, without proper training or inductions. The provider told us that staff undertaking dual roles received the required training and role-specific inductions before carrying out duties of these roles.

The provider was aware of some staff discontent and had arranged sessions with senior leaders to try to help resolve this and give staff the opportunity to discuss their concerns.