Edgware Community Hospital Intermediate Care Wards

We saw that staff were friendly and professional in their approach and that they assisted patients with warmth and sensitivity. For example, we saw staff informing patients about what they were going to do and checking that patients understood.

Care records were detailed and included risk assessments as well as records identifying the needs and wishes of patients. There were additional medical records which provided input from the therapists who provided treatment and rehabilitation.

There was a choice of food available including kosher and halal meals. Staff were active in assisting patients to eat and making sure they received their food of choice. There were nutritional assessments in patient's care plans as well as a range of staff available including a dietician and speech therapist who carried out assessments and checked that meals were provided as planned.

Staff said that they felt supported and that they worked with each other well to provide the service. There was a range of training available to staff and systems in place to check what training staff had received.

There were mechanisms to monitor the quality of the service and there was evidence that action had been taken to address concerns and to make improvements. For example, there was an action plan in progress which we looked at during the inspection. We identified that a number of improvements, such as additional staff training and new care records, had been made with more work in progress. There was also an additional action plan to address the findings of a monitoring visit from the provider's Chief Executive. We gave the provider feedback we had received from patients so that they could include in this action plan.