Washwood Healthcare Service

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 as good. At this assessment the rating has remained the same.

This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their 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 always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

People told us staff were kind and treated them with care and respect. People told us they felt comfortable going to staff if they wanted support. We saw that staff understood what people wanted and knew if they were distressed in any way from their vocal expressions and body language. Staff were quick to respond to people and when speaking with the staff, we found they knew people well and understood people’s backgrounds and personal preferences. One person told us, “They [staff] really look after you. The help me out no end [staff members’ names] are brilliant. How can I complain about people doing me so many favours.”

Staff had completed training that included treating people with dignity and respect. One staff member said, “We [staff] are well trained. We have training every year. They [registered manager] encourage us to ask for training if there’s anything we don’t understand.”

The registered manager explained how they used observed practices to monitor the staff and make sure the culture within the home demonstrated kindness to people and staff took the time to talk to people and build positive relationships.

Two visiting professionals shared their observations on the interactions between people and staff. One professional told us, “Staff know people really well, any questions I ask, they know the answers.” Another professional said, “I have only ever seen staff treating people with respect and dignity, they [staff] are good with people here.”

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Staff had completed training around equality and diversity that took account of people’s protected characteristics. People told us they were treated well by staff who were considerate and understood their individual needs and preferences. We saw some staff were able to converse with people in their own preferred languages.

Care plans we looked at had considered people’s cultural needs and tailored that support with input from people and where it was possible, their relatives and advocates. We saw staff were considerate of people’s cultural and religious needs and the support had been tailored to meet those needs. This included supporting people with their clothing to reflect their religious and cultural background when visiting relatives, but also supporting the person to express their own identity when living at the home or in the wider community.

The provider promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People told us they were supported to make choices and had control over their own care and support. We saw people were involved in making day to day decisions where people were supported to, for example, go out shopping. People had access to computers and the internet if they wanted. Some people had their own phones and computers. One staff member told us, “[Person] orders quite a lot for themselves on the internet through their phone and we can help them do that, but they usually manage on their own.”

People also told us how they were supported by staff to access the local community, and we saw there were a range of activities ongoing throughout the days we were on site. People were asked if they wanted to join in or not.

There was a ‘quiet’ area that had mood lighting, soft furnishings to sit on, computer area and books to read. However, the room was in the middle of 2 lounges and was quite open plan. The 1 lounge had the television on which was quite loud, and the second lounge was where the daily activities were taking place. At times, the level of noise in the ‘quiet’ area was loud. One person told us, “It can get quite noisy at times, and I don’t like too much noise, when it gets too noisy, I tend to go to my room.” It is recognised the design and age of the home means there are some constraints around space. We shared our observations around the level of noise in the quiet area with the registered manager and the provider.

The provider listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Where people had difficulty verbally communicating their needs, we saw staff were able to recognise through the sounds and expressions of the people what their needs were and respond quickly and appropriately to give reassurances and comfort.

People told us they felt staff listened to them when they raised anything and that staff were quick to support them. People also told us there were enough staff on duty on a day-to-day basis to support them and they were not left waiting for staff to help. One staff member told us, “We’ve got enough staff and we also have (separate) activities staff.”

We saw when people became unwell, the staff promptly contacted the appropriate agencies to seek advice and support for the person. When a person was admitted to hospital, the registered manager would complete prompt reassessments of the person’s needs to make sure they could still respond to those needs.

People’s care plans documented regular input from community nurses, GPs and mental health teams. One professional told us, “This is 1 of the most responsive services I work with. Whatever people need, the staff will do whatever they can to accommodate those needs.”

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff we spoke with were complimentary about the support they received from the registered manager and the provider. One staff member told us, “I would not want to work anywhere else, [registered manager and provider] are great. I can go to either of them and tell them anything, they have always been very supportive when I have needed it.”

Staff received regular supervisions and team meetings where learning was shared from any incidents, accidents or events. There were opportunities for staff to feedback any concerns about the service, people living there or their own wellbeing at the supervisions and team meetings. For staff who wanted to develop their skills, they were given the opportunities to become seniors. One staff member told us, “They [registered manager and provider] are very hot on training and will let us do what training we think we need or have an interest in.”

Staff turnover was low and the provider had not had to use any agency staff for a few years. Another staff member said, “We will support each other [staff], we know people’s needs, which is important and I think this is why it is a happy home. The residents are all we care about and making sure they are well looked after and cared for.”

When there had been any incidents, staff were given time to reflect and talk about their experience and offered any additional support from the provider and registered manager if needed.