Grove Park

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

People’s independence and choice were not always actively supported or promoted. There was a failure to ensure the care and treatment met people’s needs, reflected their preferences or maintained their independence. This was a breach of Regulation 9 (1) (2) (3) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 – Person Centred Care.

This service scored 60 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Some people expressed concern with staff not always respecting their privacy. We raised concerns with the registered manager during our assessment visit. People told us staff were kind, one person told us, “Staff are very pleasant, sometimes very satisfactory. Occasionally I think they can do better.” Relatives spoke positively about staff, one example,” They’re amazing they're all lovely”.

The registered manager told us about their challenges with some staff understanding the expectations of their role. They told us, "We are trying to improve how communication is delivered between people and other members of staff ." Staff spoke about people warmly and recognised how people’s life history might impact them.

Health professionals who spoke with us told us, “The leads in Grove Park are very caring about their residents and appear to know some residents, very well”. Another told us, “The nursing and care staff are very empathetic and caring towards the residents.”

Observations of staff practice did not always provide assurance they respected people’s privacy, for example, staff were reluctant to leave a person to speak privately and another was heard speaking about support needs openly in a communal space. Staff interacted with people in a warm, respectful manner and people’s dignity was maintained.

People did not always receive care and treatment which met their needs, reflected their preferences or maintained their independence. One person told us, “I prefer to be independent with medication but here the nurses have taken control.” Care plans had not always considered peoples strengths or abilities to maintain independence. Another spoke of challenges they had being involved with changes to their support, “I don’t know who to report to if I have problems. I ask who is in charge, a nurse says they are in charge, but then nothing is done.” A relative spoke positively about how staff supported their loved one by being able to speak in their native language with them. “They all came in and introduced themselves some staff speak Arabic which [loved one] was very grateful for.”

Staff described people care plans including consideration of health support such as, “Continence, mobility, skin care, weight and MUST score and Waterlow.” They were unable to provide details of people’s strengths, abilities or how they were supported to maintain independence. The registered manager told us they would arrange for staff to risk assess the persons preferences to maintain their independence with medicines. Staff spoke about how they worked with people who might be expressing distress or confusion. Their responses did not provide assurance they had effective skills and understanding to meet peoples needs. The provider told us they had taken a decision to work with some people and commissioners to review whether they were able to continue to meet some peoples needs.

We observed staff providing support with kindness; however, this was generally task focused and people preferences were not always considered. For example, for one person who expressed a preference to remain asleep staff, continued to attempt to wake them to take a pain relief medicine.

Care plans did not always contain information about people’s strengths or abilities or consider their preferences to maintain control and independence. Language used was in general about compliance and non- compliance. Person centred language is about always respecting the dignity, worth, unique qualities and strengths of every individual this was not always apparent in care plans.

Staff culture and practice was focussed on caring for people, however, staff had not always considered peoples wellbeing. A number of people spoke of how they preferred to stay in their rooms as they preferred not to use the communal spaces. One person described feeling uncomfortable around some people, “It’s upsetting seeing those with dementia, it's getting me depressed.”

Staff feedback was generally around peoples care needs. Some spoke of how supporting people with complex needs had created more challenge for them.

We observed people not having choice and control over their care and how they preferred to spend their time. Staff were primarily focused on tasks and keeping people safe, when at times we saw people unhappy that they were in communal areas instead of their rooms where they would rather had been.

Care plans were not always person centred or demonstrate involvement of people in their choices and care planning. Care plan reviews had not evidenced staff had reviewed a person’s choice, control or well being. The provider had recently commenced, “Service User Quality Walk Rounds”. Whilst this was a recent initiative, it had not considered how to support people to be more involved or in control of their support.

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.