Banbury Heights Nursing Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Some improvements were required to ensure care plans held up to date, relevant information and people were fully involved in their care planning. People’s capacity was assessed and staff requested consent before completing tasks. Tools were used to record people’s health.

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.

Not everyone knew about their care plans or felt involved in the process. However, others stated they were fully involved. A person and their relative told us, "I am not sure if [person] has a Care Plan, we have not seen one.” A relative told us, “Yes, [person] has a Care Plan. it was updated a month ago. I went along to the meeting and I wanted to make sure [person] had a DNR note in it.” Another relative said, “We have been very pleased with the care and the service here, we have praise for all the staff. I think they are well qualified and they always are friendly in their welcome”.

Staff told us they read and understood people's care plans and written information. People's care plans had information recorded regarding their likes, dislikes, history and important people to them. Staff were able to communicate with people effectively and understood different communication aids and tools that could be used if required.

People had pre assessment plans completed before they moved in to ensure the service was able to meet their individual needs. Assessment of people's needs, including those in relation to protected characteristics under the Equality Act were reflected in people's care plans. Most care plans held person centred information regarding people's likes, dislikes, history and significant relationships.

When required people had their weights recorded to mitigate risks such as malnutrition or skin pressure damage. We observed lunch being served. Some staff were providing additional guidance to staff to ensure people's needs were being met. There was a calm atmosphere and people were offered a choice of meals. We saw staff kindly engaging with people encouraging them to eat or offering drinks. People made positive comments about the quality of food provided.

The registered manager told us they had good relationships with healthcare professionals, such as district nurses and speech and language therapists. This helped to manage and monitor people’s care and help them to provide safe and consistent care. The management team told us staff made referrals to ensure people’s health needs were met. Staff were aware of the people who needed a specialised diet and/or soft diet to ensure their needs were met.

Care plans included the support people required with care and treatment. This included monitoring people with fluid and nutrition. Quality auditing systems were in place, which included regular audits and feedback from people and staff to ensure people received appropriate support with food, fluids, repositioning and any pain. The provider used tools such as Waterlow scoring (The Waterlow score is a validated composite tool that is commonly used by nursing staff in order to stratify risk of pressure sore development), MUST (MUST’ is a five-step screening tool to identify adults, who are malnourished, at risk of malnutrition (undernutrition), or obese. It also includes management guidelines which can be used to develop a care plan) and Abbey pain scales (The Abbey pain scale is an instrument designed to assist in the assessment of pain in people who are unable to clearly articulate their needs.)

We did not look at How staff, teams and services work together during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

People’s capacity was assessed by a trained staff member. All capacity assessments were decision specfic and person centred.

Staff told us they understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and received appropriate training.

The provider had processes in place to ensure people’s capacity was assessed as required. When a person was assessed as lacking the capacity to make specific decisions a best interest meeting was completed and recorded to evidence the decision made was in the persons best interest and was the least restrictive option.