Northlands Care Home (Northumberland)

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

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

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.

Staff at the service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. A person commented, “The staff are very warm, and kind that is important to me.” Another person told us, “Staff are very sociable, they like a laugh, with us. They know what I like now.” Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Staff at the service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. Improvements had been made to the culture to ensure people were treated as individual's with their wishes, wants and needs respected. Staff had received training in equality and diversity to emphasise the importance of treating people as unique individual's with different and diverse needs. A person told us, “Staff know my likes and dislikes and I get offered good choices” and,“They [staff] definitely respect my likes and dislikes, I choose my clothes.”

Staff at the service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and well-being. A person commented, “Staff explain the options to me, I am involved.” People's independence was promoted, and they chose how they spent their time. A person told us, “They [staff] take instruction from me, I feel involved in my care.”

Staff at the service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. People were supported in a safe and timely way. Staff worked calmly, they responded to people promptly, including if they became distressed. A relative told us, “[Name], is upset today, he gets the care he needs, he is not rushed. Staff listen to him, they probably understand him.”

The provider and management team cared about and promoted the well-being of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff all told us they felt valued and supported by the management team and directors. They all commented they were encouraged to voice their opinions, ideas and suggestions and the management team was acting on those. Their comments included, “Staff morale is good, it has been better the last 3 or 4 months. This has also had a positive impact on people, staff are happier, communicate better”, “The manager is fantastic, very flexible” and “With the improvements it is a lovely place to work now, and it is much better for the residents.”