We spoke to four people living at the home. Comments were mainly positive although there were some criticisms.People said they received the care and support they need. One person said he/she had an initial assessment when his/her needs were discussed. Comments about care included, 'The care is good,' and, 'On the whole the care is pretty good.'
One person said he/she has been able to exercise independence in looking after him/her self but that staff provide support when needed. One person said how the care helped him/her recuperate from a serious illness.
One person said the care staff work very hard but there was often a lack of communication between staff. For instance, requests for help were sometimes not communicated between staff and as a result tasks were sometimes not completed.
One person described the home's laundry service as 'abysmal' saying several items of clothing were lost even when they have the name of the person on them.
Staff were said to respond promptly when people requested help by using the call point in their rooms.
People said they have been able to exercise choice in how they spend their time. This included times for going to bed and getting up as well as a choice of food at each meal.
A range of activities was said to have been provided including music sessions with a guitarist. One person said there were not enough trips out.
People said they received their medication although one person said there were occasions when the medication was either late, or was missed or was not stocked.
People said they felt safe at the home.
The staff were described as kind and helpful. One person said, 'they're very good. They listen to you.'
Two of the four people we spoke to said there were enough staff on duty to meet people's needs and two people felt there were times when more staff should have been provided.
People said the home is kept clean. One person made reference to the cleaning of equipment and how staff monitored this by making a record on a tag attached to the individual items of equipment.
During the period following the lunch time meal we used our SOFI (Short Observational Framework for Inspection) tool to help us see what people's experiences were. The SOFI tool allows us to spend time watching what is going on in a service and helps us to record how people spend their time and whether they have positive experiences. This included looking at the support that was given to them by the staff. We spent 30 minutes watching the experiences of people in one of the lounges.
There was a mixture of positive experiences for people and some that were not positive.
We observed that staff generally interacted well with people and responded to their requests. Staff smiled and talked to people in a respectful way. We noted that one staff member did not respond to one person's requests: in the first instance the staff member said 'I'm busy.' After a few minutes the person asked the same staff member for help and the staff member walked out of the room without saying anything. Another staff member walked into the room and immediately responded to the persons' request with a polite manner.
During the 30 minutes we saw all other interactions with staff were positive with the exception of the provision of an activity. A staff member walked in to the lounge and switched off the television without speaking to people and played an audio tape. The tape was a reading from a book. Staff continued to talk to people and to help them whilst the tape played. This included serving drinks and asking people about what they wanted. Consequently the audio book could not be heard. The choice and manner of the activity of an audio book was not adequately planned or implemented.