Cera Castleham Lodge

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 the provider involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This service was previously unrated. At this first assessment the rating is Requires Improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

The provider was in breach of legal regulation in relation to person centred care.

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 treated people with kindness and compassion, but staff changes meant people’s privacy was not always respected.

People said care staff were kind and caring. However, a person described how their dignity and privacy was impacted by having a range of staff observe through shadowing sessions how their personal care was carried out. Care staff spoke about people in a respectful way. Some said they had only continued working for the provider out of loyalty to the people living at Castleham Lodge because they worried about their well-being.

The provider did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. 

People told us permanent care staff knew them well and how they liked things to be done. However, they said they had become tired and frustrated at having to repeat to agency staff how they liked to be supported. Agency staff said there had been issues with care device availability which meant they did not always have access to people’s care plans.

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.

People said the unreliability, missed visits and delays had impacted on their independence. For example, one person relied on staff to assist them with drying after personal care, which they managed independently. Staff being delayed meant they could not get dressed and carry on with their daily routine. Another person had resorted to arranging private care from another provider because they were so concerned cover arrangements had not been made to assist them to bed, which they could not do without help.

The provider did not monitor how other care duties impacted on the outcome for people who received personal care.

Staff told us they were often called to respond to people’s requests who lived at Castleham Lodge but were not contracted to receive a care service. For example, there was an emergency call bell system connected to a national emergency call response team in another part of the country. This meant care staff were also required to respond to requests for help which could not be resolved by the call response team.

Some of these additional requests were logged in the staff communication book. Staff told us these types of responses could then impact on planned care visits for other people. We asked the management team about the contract arrangements for this type of service and whether they monitored the impact. They could not clarify the expectations on the care team, the contractual arrangement or whether there was a direct impact on people’s needs being met. The provider told us it is a contractual requirement within the Extra Care model to answer emergency pendant calls. They said, ‘Staff are trained to triage calls via handset, prioritise genuine emergencies, avoid leaving individuals mid personal care or during moving and handling tasks, and log all pendant activations.’

The provider did not always demonstrate they cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff.

The permanent staff group had shown resilience during all the changes since Cera Castleham Lodge had registered with CQC to provide personal care. However, staff feedback showed a level of exhaustion and disappointment with the organisation. For example, shown by sickness levels and the number of experienced staff who had left in the last year.

Staff said they were hopeful under an interim manager’s oversight things would improve for them and the people using the service. Staff were proud of their good relationship with the people they worked with. However, they were saddened by the reduction in the quality and reliability of the service without adequate management and oversight of their work, including rotas.