Carrstone House 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 as requires improvement.

This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for, or treated with dignity and respect.

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. Staff were observed to treat people with kindness and respect, and we saw positive interactions between staff and people. The home had a warm and light atmosphere. We received mixed feedback about agency staff used by the service from people and relatives, 1 relative said, "agency staff can ignore you sometimes." While 1 person said, "agency staff are respectful and kind." We received positive feedback from people's relatives about permanent care staff, "Absolutely kind and considerate'' and " “Care staff, housekeeping staff, reception and back-office staff are kind and cheerful.”

The provider 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. Care plans included if people had a preference to the gender of staff member that attended them, however, we found that this was not always respected due to staffing levels.

Care plans included people's likes and dislikes, personal histories and what was important to them. People's bedrooms were observed to be decorated to their individualised tastes.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. We found that the middle floor was not specifically dementia friendly and there was a lack of dementia friendly signage and pictorial menus. This was raised during the inspection, and the provider was taking action to provide dementia friendly signage.

People were encouraged to administer their own medicines when they were able to, although we had some concerns around the support people received to do this safely.

We received mixed feedback from people and relatives relating to actives, with 1 relative saying, "few activities match [family members] interests. [They] forget events and would benefit from staff reminders and encouragement. Fitness is sometimes unsuitable, music too loud; has enjoyed cooking activities," while another said, " [staff] try to keep them active." Planned activities were on display, however, people told us that these could change at the last minute.

The service was aware of the concerns regarding activities and had recently employed an additional activities person.

The provider 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 received feedback from people using the service which said that staff were not always responsive when they have called for assistance. One person said, " may wait 45 minutes sometimes for staff to attend." While a relative said, "I’ll tell someone that [family member] needs the toilet, and when I’ve asked I’ve never had to wait."

Daily notes viewed for 2 people recorded health concerns where medical advice had either not been sought or had not been sought in a timely manner. This placed people at risk of experiencing a delay in receiving appropriate treatment and referrals.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. The provider had processes in place to promote staff wellbeing, however, there had not been a registered manager in place since 2025 and feedback from staff said this had affected staff morale. Staff feeling rushed and high staff turnover had also affected staff morale. A new manager had been appointed the week before the inspection commenced and staff hoped that this would improve the running of the home.

Staff spoke highly of their roles and the people they cared for.