Autumn House Residential 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.

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared for or treated with dignity and respect.

The service was no longer in breach of the legal regulations in relation to treating people with dignity and respect as some improvements had been made and the service was embedding the improvements into the service.

This service scored 55 (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.

We observed staff spending time with people, engaging people in conversations that mattered to them. For example, staff proactively supported a person when they became distressed, providing reassurance and spending time with the person, redirecting their attention to an activity they enjoyed. This meant people had the support they required to maintain their wellbeing and reduced the risk of people’s mental health declining.

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.

People’s personal information had not been gathered when people first moved into the home, therefore people’s care plans did not include these details. This increased the risk of people receiving generic support that did not meet their emotional needs or preferences.

The home manager was aware care plans lacked essential information and was planning on meeting with people and where appropriate their families to gain this information, the service had also employed a staff member to complete this work and they were due to commence their employment in November.

Staff had some knowledge of people’s unique backgrounds, culture and their strengths as they had spent time building working relationships with people.

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.

People did not have the opportunity to participate in their hobbies and interests. The home manager was aware of this; an activities co-ordinator had been recruited and was due to commence their employment. The home manager was exploring opportunities to enable people to access activities that mattered to them.

The service was in the process of installing a kitchenette, to provide people with the opportunity to have access to drinks and snacks, they could choose and have whenever they wished.

People’s care plans lacked essential details of some people’s medical conditions. Staff’s knowledge had improved, and documentation demonstrated staff were able to recognise when a person’s health and wellbeing had begun to decline.

Staff were able to describe the action they would take to ensure people’s needs were met if they started to become unwell or if they showed signs of emotional distress. Information health professionals needed to assess the person was available. This meant people were able to receive support in a timely way.

At the time of the assessment the provider was working with staff to increase their knowledge, skills and confidence. Staff said they felt supported by the home manager. Staff said they were not aware of any incentives available to them and felt the provider had not celebrated success.

The home manager was aware of this at the time of the assessment and was working with the provider to establish ways of acknowledging the staff ‘s dedication and commitment where staff had gone above and beyond expectations.