Seventrees 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 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.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to person centred care at the service.

This service scored 50 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We observed people were treated with kindness and respect. Staff ensured people’s privacy was respected, for example by knocking on the doors of people’s rooms, asking if they could enter, and closing people’s curtains to respect their dignity.

Staff had positive relationships with people and spent time with them, talking about their interests and things important to them, and we observed they were able to quickly identify early signs of anxiety, and reassure people when they became anxious.

People told us staff were nice and kind, and relatives spoke positively about how people were cared for. They told us the staff had a good understanding of people’s needs, were attentive, and people were treated with respect and dignity.

Feedback from other professionals involved with the home was positive, with 1 professional saying staff were, “very caring”.

The provider did not treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They did not take account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations and culture.

People’s personal, cultural and social needs were not met within the service. Although people’s individual needs and preferences were indicated in their care plans and staff told us they knew people’s preferences, these were not always reflected in the support people received. Opportunities were not taken to provide people with activities to meet their needs and preferences. For example, there were limited leisure facilities and activities available for people to do within the service, and people were not provided with opportunities to take part in activities they enjoyed.

People had very little stimulation during the inspection. They often spent time sitting in the lounge, where the television was predominantly on the same channel, despite people having varied interests, or they spent time in their rooms sitting or lying on their beds. People’s daily notes reflected this, with some people having no meaningful, stimulating activities recorded as having taken place inside the service over a 2-week period. We raised this with the provider, who told us this was people’s choice. They also told us they were planning on investing in new facilities within the home, and changing the culture within the service to improve activities. On the last day of the inspection staff played some games with people.

There was a stable staff team who had worked at the service for many years, meaning they knew people well and were able to communicate with people. However, staff did not always use tools to support and enhance people’s communication in line with people’s care plans. For example, some people’s care plans said, to support them most effectively with communication, staff should use writing and / or easy read materials. We did not observe staff using these with people during the inspection and some staff told us there were no communication aids available, as people did not need them.

However, the provider showed us 1 example where an easy read social story was successfully used to support a person to a medical appointment, and staff showed us how they supported people to plan the menu, by selecting pictures of food they wanted.

The provider 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.

The provider did not always provide people with opportunities to access the community to promote and support their independence and wellbeing. Relatives told us the provider no longer had the use of a vehicle to support people to access the community, and the impact of this was some people often did not go out unless they were taken out by relatives or friends. They told us people used to go out in the community to access activities, but now this has significantly reduced. Daily notes supported this, showing over a 2-week period, some people did not go into the community unless taken by relatives or friends. Relatives told us this made it feel like “a prison”. One person told us they liked to do a particular community activity, but they had only been able to do it once.

Staff told us they used to take people out spontaneously to various activities, however without a vehicle, they were now restricted to public transport which could be expensive, restricted the activities available, and did not always meet people’s mobility needs. They told us people no longer go out and, people just “sit here”.

However, we observed some people accessed the community more than others, we were told some people chose not to go out, and staff told us they try to offer everyone an offsite activity once per month.

We raised the lack of offsite activities with the provider, who told us they would be introducing a new activities coordinator, and they had increased staff at weekends to help facilitate more activities. The provider also told us they had requested additional 1:1 support for people, however this had not been provided by the local authority which, the provider told us, affected the frequency of off-site activities available to people.

People’s independence was not always promoted, as there were restrictions in place such as locked doors. For example, the laundry was locked to reduce the risk to 1 person. However, the impact of this on other people had not been assessed. This meant some people were unable to access the laundry and some food independently without asking staff. After this was raised with the provider during the inspection, they took action to address this.

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 were observed to be responsive to people’s needs, and some people told us they did not have to wait for support. Staff recognised and anticipated people’s need, and they had time to spend with people and talk with them on a social level and were not task orientated.

Relatives were confident staff had a good understanding of people’s needs, and we saw examples of staff reassuring people to reduce anxiety.

However, staff did not always identify and act on people’s need for varied and stimulating activities throughout the day.

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

Staff gave mixed feedback about whether they felt supported and listened to by the provider.

Some staff told us they did not always feel supported. This impacted the culture of the staff team. Some staff told us morale was, ‘the lowest it’s ever been’, another told us they worked, ‘hideous hours’ and another said there was ‘no confidentiality’. The provider had adjusted staff shift patterns to promote consistency of care across the day and night, however some staff told us this did not always meet their needs.

Although staff told us, and records supported, they received supervision and appraisals, some staff told us they did not always feel they were listened to and treated fairly by the provider.

People and their relatives told us about the frustrations staff shared with them, although they told us this had not impacted on the care staff provided.

However, some staff spoke positively about the provider and told us they were supported when they raised concerns.