Iceni House

Updated 16 February 2024

We completed this assessment between 16 February 2024 to 21 March 2024 when we carried out an onsite visit to do some observations and speak with people who used the service. We assessed this service to follow up a previous Require Improvement rating and to assure ourselves that concerns raised by a whistle blower last year although properly investigated were not within people’s current experience. We looked at a number of quality statements under the five key questions as shown in the report. We continued to request and review information as a result of feedback. Iceni House is a care home which provides accommodation and residential care to up to 75 older people living with or without dementia. During our evidence gathering we spoke with 18 relatives and friends,15 staff and health care professionals. We received mostly positive feedback on many aspects of the care provided, including compliments about staff attitudes, cleanliness, safety, health provision and activities. Relatives said the registered manager was firm but fair and dealt with things in a timely way. Relatives said the manager kept the relatives informed and told them how to raise concerns should the service fall short of their expectations. Staff told us there had been lots of improvements and most felt this was a good service. However, staff told us almost exclusively that staffing levels were not enough to meet people’s need and staff said they were ‘flat out.’ This was supported by our observations and people did not receive timely care and care records were poor. Most relatives were positive about staffing levels although several said there were not enough staff, and people had to wait for their care. Due to staffing levels, deployment of staffing and the observations we made we concluded there were a number of breaches of regulation and the service was not yet where it needed to be to ensure consistently good standards of care across the whole service

Updated 16 February 2024

We spoke with 1 person remotely who gave a negative oversight of their experience. We carried out a visit on 21 March 2024, and spoke with 10 people and 2 relatives across 2 floors and carried out observations and spoke with a health care professional and another relative immediately after our visit. We followed up our concerns following this visit with the registered manager, the nominated individual, the local authority, and the local GP practice. Our observations on the Pickenham suite gave us concerns that people did not always receive a consistently good service and risks to their safety were not always being acted upon to prevent further incidents. The deployment of staff on this unit was not appropriate to people’s needs. This was explained as being due to last minute sickness, holidays, and inspection activity but meant people did not receive care and support in a timely way. A lot of people were in bed up until lunch and there was limited activity observed. Lunch was not a meaningful experience, and people did not receive lunch in a timely way or in line with their needs. T The service had recently been affected by an infection outbreak and a number of people were still unwell, with several people saying they were in pain which was reported to staff by us. People’s continence needs were not managed well and there was a smell of urine in the Pickenham suite. Continence assessments were completed, and people provided with continence aids, but we observed staff not acting in a timely way to bouts of incontinence which posed a risk to people using the service. We also noted some people were disheveled, unshaven and in stained clothing. Whilst we appreciated some people could be resistant to care and support, we felt staff did not attend to people in a timely, person centred way but were task focused indicating a poor culture.