St Martha's

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated them as individuals and supported their preferences. People had choice in their care and were encouraged to maintain relationships with family and friends.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity.

Staff were kind responsive and caring. They were confident supporting the patients on the ward and reacted empathetically to them when they needed support. Patients were positive about the staff.

Staff were caring and responsive. They consistently asked patients if they wanted drinks due to blanket restrictions on hot drinks to ensure they were comfortable.

We saw staff manage an incident well involving a patient hitting staff. They used appropriate de-escalation techniques with good effect. The ward manager checked both patient and staff welfare following the incident and recorded it as a risk event.

Rose ward was very noisy which sometimes made it hard to have conversations in the main communal area. Staff told us they got used to working in this environment. Staff sat with patients and took part in activities during the day. Some patients chose to not always engage in activities but were invited to attend if they wanted.

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

Staff treated patients as individuals. For example, staff said working on the ward was very rewarding. They enjoyed having time to get to know the patients’ individual needs, likes and dislikes.

Staff knew the patients well and dealt with all requests sensitively and in a caring manner. Staffs understanding of each patient helped to identify potential triggers for distress and inform specific de-escalation techniques they used for individuals. For example, in one ward one patient repeatedly knocked on the nurse’s office door wanting a restricted item. Staff explained calmly and transparently why they could not have it at that time. This reassured the patient.

Staff tailored the way they communicated to meet the individual needs and circumstances of the patient on the ward. For example, one patient asked for some food and staff brought her a coffee. Half an hour later, this patient asked another staff member for food who offered her the options and brought her some lunch.

We observed staff spending lots of 1:1 time with patients. We saw details of 1:1 sessions with staff recorded in patients notes. Patients spoken with confirmed they had one to one time with staff which they valued.

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

Patients said they could see their family and friends when they wanted to. We saw visitors meeting with patients in the visitors’ room.

Patients were able to celebrate and express their individuality in a way personal to them. Some patients said they enjoyed going to Mass and this was facilitated by the staff team. There was a hairdressing salon at the service which some patients chose to access.

Patients could access their own clothes and belongings. Staff stored some items such as passports and bank cards in the ward safe which could be accessed on request.

Patients felt staff explained choices to them and supported them to make decisions. For example, on Iris ward some patients said they could not choose what they wanted to eat. Staff explained their situation to them patiently. We saw staff offering patients a range of different foods for breakfast.

Patients gave positive feedback about the level of activities available on the wards. Patients told us there were sufficient activities and staff engaged most patients in activities throughout the day. On the day of our inspection, there was a designated activity co-ordinator who led some patients with chair exercises and a game of cards.

On Rose Ward the radio was on constantly. It was loud and some patients complained about it. Staff said patients could choose to change the radio station but we did not see this happen.

We did not look at Responding to people’s immediate needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Workforce wellbeing and enablement during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.