Eastbourne Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating remained requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people's care, treatment and support was inconsistent.

The provider was in continuing breach of legal regulation in relation to good governance.

This service scored 58 (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 did not always make sure people’s care and treatment was effective. Whilst improvements had been made to the care people received, further and sustained improvement was needed in relation to medicines management and monitoring and recording risk. This would ensure care was always delivered in line with people’s assessed needs.

Further and sustained improvement was needed in how the provider planned and monitored people’s care and treatment, including in relation to safe eating and drinking. People's nutritional health was not always consistently monitored. For example, people were not always weighed as required by their care plans. Records did not always record the support people had received with eating and drinking.

We observed staff encouraging people to eat and drink, and people spoke positively about mealtimes at the service. One person said, “(There are) different things every day, and if I don’t like them they will suggest other things”. A relative told us, “They have good meals. It’s not cordon bleu but it’s ok and there’s always plenty of snacks and drinks.”

The service worked well across teams and services to support people. Staff were knowledgeable about people’s support needs and could tell us how they worked with other healthcare professionals in providing support. Records showed that healthcare professionals were contacted where needed.

Improvements had been made in supporting people to live healthier lives. The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. People could access healthcare professionals to help maintain and improve their health and wellbeing. One person said, “I can see the GP, recently I’ve seen the optician”.

The provider did not always ensure that outcomes were positive and consistent, or that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves. Though healthcare professionals were consulted, the outcomes of this were not always recorded. The provider said this would be reviewed to ensure outcomes were consistently monitored.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) provides a legal framework for making particular decisions on behalf of people who may lack the mental capacity to do so for themselves. The MCA requires that, as far as possible, people make their own decisions and are helped to do so when needed. When they lack mental capacity to take particular decisions, any made on their behalf must be in their best interests and as least restrictive as possible. People can only be deprived of their liberty to receive care and treatment when this is in their best interests and legally authorised under the MCA. In care homes, and some hospitals, this is usually through MCA application procedures called the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). We checked whether the service was working within the principles of the MCA, and whether any conditions on authorisations to deprive a person of their liberty had the appropriate legal authority and were being met.

One person’s DoLS had been authorised with conditions, and records showed these were not always being met. Relatives and other care professionals were not always involved in designing or reviewing care, even where people lacked capacity. Records showed that staff sometimes made decisions on people’s behalf even where people had capacity. This meant there was a risk people received care which did not uphold their rights.