Champion House - Care Home with Nursing Physical Disabilities

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

At our last inspection we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement. We reviewed 3 quality statements in this assessment. People were not always treated as individuals and their specific needs were not always understood by staff. People told us access to activities and the community needed to improve. People were treated with kindness, empathy and compassion by staff who maintained their dignity. Care records gave good detail about people. People were supported to stay in touch with family and friends and there were no restrictions on visiting.

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.

People said they were treated well by staff. Comments included, “They do a very good job”, "The staff we have now are polite, they’re friendly” and “The staff are brilliant, they’re so lovely. It’s hard work for them when they’re short staffed, and they have been quite a bit recently, so sometimes it’s like they’re having to do two people’s jobs, but they’re always very pleasant.” 11 people had recently completed a satisfaction survey and everyone who completed the survey said staff were caring and treated them with dignity and respect.

We observed staff were kind and caring. They treated people with respect and maintained their dignity. Staff knocked on closed bedroom doors before entering and were polite and friendly. One door was closed with a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the handle, the staff member advised that the person didn’t like to get up early so the sign reminded everyone not to disturb them. People did not appear to be rushed and could get up when they wanted.

People were not always treated as individuals. For example, 1 person had a lot of football pictures on the wall outside their room. When asked if they were a fan, they said the pictures were still there from the person who had lived in the room before. People's individual needs were not always understood by staff. People highlighted communication issues with some agency and overseas staff, which they said impacted on the care they received. Comments included, "Sometimes residents struggle to understand some of the newer staff and they struggle to understand people, but I guess it will come with time as they work here longer, if they stay, and get used to the language" and "Some staff have been here a long time, I know them well and when they help me it’s fine because I know them and they know me. We’ve been having lots of agency staff so you don’t always know who they are, that can be difficult.”

Some staff appeared to know people well and all interactions we observed were kind and respectful. However, people were not always engaged in activities that met their social needs. We saw some people engaged in a game of dominoes with a staff member, whilst others had been given colouring books and crayons. We noted the colouring books were aimed at small children and were also Christmas themed. However, most people were not engaged in any activity at all. We also observed that when a person had visitors, the visit happened in the middle of the dining room, which did not afford them any privacy. We found many of the people in the dining room were just watching the visitors.

Care records were mostly personalised and gave good detail about people. However, our discussions with care staff indicated they did not routinely read people’s care plans. For example, 1 person’s care records described their communication preferences, but the staff we spoke with were unaware of this information. We also found 2 people’s care plans contained the same information for the support they required, whether it was relevant to that particular care plan or not.

Most people felt they had some choice and control over their care and daily lives. One person said, “[Staff] don’t make us do anything we don’t want to do” and said they are able to make their own everyday choices. However, another person said, “The coordinator left last Christmas so there’s no-one to do anything. They need another activities coordinator because they’re very long days when you’ve not really got anything to do. A lot of [residents] go to sleep in the afternoons.” People also told us access to activities and the community needed to improve. One person said, “The main thing for me is that there’s not enough drivers to take me out. I have been to the cinema and concerts and Blackpool, so I do still go out, just not as often as we used to.”

People were supported to stay in touch with family and friends and there were no restrictions on visiting. However, the interim manager recognised more needed to be done to ensure people were able access to activities of their choosing and the local community.

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.