The Old Vicarage

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture. At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to good. This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

This service scored 75 (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 had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities. The provider’s fundamental standards set out a commitment to person-centred care, dignity and respect, amongst other standards people could expect when living at The Old Vicarage. Leaders were committed and wanted to provide high standards of care and told us they put people at the forefront of everything they did. A code of conduct was in place for staff. This included the expected standards of behaviour and included the arrangements for the induction and training of staff and the commitment to treating people fairly and in line with the Equalities Act 2010. This helped to ensure people and staff were treated fairly and had their rights upheld. Leaders showed their commitment to wider social concerns. For example, leaders promoted the values of recycling in the day-to-day life of the home and had taken action to support local food producers and sourced their dairy and meat products from local producers.

The provider had inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They did so with integrity, openness and honesty.

Leaders valued their staff team and listened to their views and opinions. Leaders told us about the support provided to staff to help ensure they were confident and capable in their job roles. This included guidance and procedures to follow as well as specific training. Staff told us they found leaders open and approachable and had confidence they had the knowledge and skills needed to run a safe service.

The provider fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

Leaders provided a variety of ways for people to give feedback, including how to raise concerns should they have any. This included speaking with staff regularly and having different members of the leadership team available to speak with.

The provider valued diversity in their workforce. They worked towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who worked for them.

Leaders understood how their workforce could face discrimination and took actions to ensure people were treated fairly and respected at work.

The provider had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance.

They used these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They acted on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and shared this securely with others when appropriate. Leaders had developed systems to help ensure good oversight of the quality and safety of the service. We discussed with leaders some areas of oversight where this could be further improved, for example, the oversight of medicines, and records management. We were assured leaders would make these improvements.

The provider understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services worked seamlessly for people. They shared information and learning with partners and collaborated for improvement. Leaders ensured the service worked in partnership with relevant health and social care professionals as well as a wide range of partners involved in providing a varied activities programme for people. Healthcare providers told us staff supported their involvement when they visited people. Where suggestions for any improvements could be made in ways of working, these were taken on board by leaders.

The provider focussed on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They always encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contributed to safe, effective practice and research. Leaders took a continuous learning approach to all aspects of the service. Incidents, complaints and potential safeguarding incidents were reviewed and the reflections used to help inform further improvements. Leaders and staff were knowledgeable on various creative dementia therapies and consulted with relatives to help ensure these were introduced sensitively. A relative told us they appreciated the dementia informed approach taken with their family member and it had helped them feel more settled. Leaders were part of networking groups and told us these were helpful for sharing good practice updates and discussing any queries. In addition, leaders had attended The Care Show. This is a conference that aims to help networking, knowledge sharing and demonstrates new developments within the care community.