- Care home
Middleton Park Lodge
Assessment report published 2 July 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 23 and 29 April 2025.Middleton Park Lodge is a nursing home, registered to provide personal and nursing care[LH1] to 44 people. At the time of the assessment, there were 43 people living at the home. We completed this assessment to follow up on concerns received in relation to staffing, activities and incidents happening at the service. We found 2 breaches in regulation in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance.
Medicines were not always managed safely; we found concerns with the management of people’s thickeners, creams, diabetic care and people’s access to medication when they were out on activities. Environmental risks were not always managed well. People did not always have access to a call bell they could easily use. We found staff were not always deployed in a way that ensured people’s needs were met in a timely manner and we received mixed feedback about staffing levels. We made a recommendation about staffing.
We found inconsistency in the quality of people’s care plans, some were very detailed and person centred while others did not provide essential details to guide staff in caring for people. We found there was a regular provision of activities happening at the home. People were treated with kindness, empathy and compassion and staff respected people’s privacy and dignity.
The provider did not always have effective governance and quality assurance systems in place. There were regular audits being completed, but the issues identified during this assessment had not been previously found. The regular checks completed by management, had also not been effective in identifying and addressing the issued found at this assessment. The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and staff told us they enjoyed their roles. People, relatives and staff were all overwhelmingly positive about the registered manager.
[LH1]Do you need to put the dates you attended onsite and when assessment started and ended.
People's experience of this service
We spoke with nine people using the service and eight relatives about their experience of the care provided. We observed care in the communal areas to help us understand the experience of people. We used the Short Observational Framework for Assessment (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.
While people expressed general satisfaction with their care, our assessment found elements of care did not meet the expected standards. People were positive about the care and support provided by staff. One person told us “Yes, I feel safe, the staff make you feel safe.” People and relatives told us staff were kind and caring.
Most feedback received from relatives was positive. One relative commented, “I am very impressed by the level of care and how [staff] interact [with person].”