The Park Residential and Nursing Home

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-Led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture. Leaders communicated the provider’s values in ways that engaged people and staff and included links to the local community. Leaders were supported to develop their skills and capabilities and to work towards achieving equality for their workforce. People and staff felt they were able to ‘speak up’ freely if something was not right. A range of audits and checks helped leaders maintain governance and oversight of the quality and safety of the service. Leaders were open and honest when things could improve and looked to implement learning to make further improvements.

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.

Leaders modelled the values of the service and were proud to work at The Park Residential and Nursing Home. The provider encouraged innovation and acknowledged good practice. Leaders spoke about a ‘healthy competition’ between the provider’s separate locations to improve and celebrate their achievements. Staff said they enjoyed working at The Park Residential and Nursing Home, and that the provider allowed them to learn and develop into confident and competent carers and nurses.

Processes were in place to ensure people and staff knew the provider’s shared values and culture. Information was available to show the provider’s shared direction that included the behaviours of ambition, inclusion, integrity, quality and sustainability. The staff handbook set out the provider’s mission to be a leader of high quality care and how it operated as a non-profit distributing organisation that allowed surplus income to be re-invested into existing services and business growth.

Leaders had supported a new registered manager in post through their induction. Staff felt the registered manager was approachable, fair and had made positive changes since being in the role. Staff we spoke with both felt supported by the registered manager and able to raise any issues with them and these would be listened to and acted on.

Processes were in place to support staff to develop as capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders. For example, development days and programmes were run for team leaders and deputy managers. Registered managers had completed or had booked onto attend on a ‘Skills for Care’ well-led leadership programme aimed to develop registered managers. The registered manager had held a ‘meet and greet’ session where people could meet the registered manager for an informal chat over refreshments. Leaders attended conferences and meetings designed to help share learning and developments.

Leaders spoke about an open-door policy, in addition to procedures in place to support people and staff in speaking up. There was also a confidential whistle-blowing process in place if staff did not feel they could share concerns directly with them. Staff we spoke with understood what whistleblowing meant and how to do so if needed.

A staff council operated and allowed staff to raise questions and share news from their own locations. The provider’s audits took time to speak with people, relatives and staff to help ensure they could raise any concerns or compliments. Policies were in place for whistleblowing and this was shared with staff in their staff handbook. Whistleblowing is a procedure that allows staff to raise genuine safety concerns.

Leaders explained there was a commitment to supporting staff and their diverse needs. Leaders were proud of the team culture which celebrated individuals from different backgrounds. Different equality and support networks were available to support staff and training was in place to educate and inform staff on equality diversity and human rights needs of the staff at the service. Leaders told us, “The biggest positive is we have a home that has a team of people who embrace development; embrace technology with people, they have embraced upskilling themselves, staff are learning from each other, and we have a diverse staff team. We have recruited overseas staff with different cultures and backgrounds, beautiful examples of teams supporting each other, other colleagues invite them over with their families. We have created a culture where people are genuinely interested in learning about cultures. Staff will bring in food. People have developed a real empathy, more humanistic approach.” Staff we spoke with shared they had not faced discrimination whilst at work and confirmed they were aware of training provided in equality, diversity and human rights.

Processes were in place to help the service support events to celebrate inclusive and diverse communities and lives. For example, the provider had an ‘Inclusion for all’ strategy that set out the provider’s aims and strategy for equality. The provider’s strategic equality goal was to have ‘A diverse, inclusive organisation where our people thrive and respond to the needs of our customers with fairness and empathy.’ Other processes such as monitoring and reporting on the gender pay gap and the ethnicity pay gap helped to inform the provider’s progress towards these goals. Training was planned to help staff groups understand relevant diversity and inclusion issues and apply it to their day-to-day work. The provider had processes in place to support workforce equality, diversity and inclusion.

Leaders explained there were a range of systems and processes in place to oversee risk and improve quality at the service. Leaders demonstrated a good understanding of the service priorities. Tasks were delegated appropriately to relevant staff, whilst the provider maintained good oversight. The provider had resources to support compliance. This included regional audits.

Robust processes were in place to help ensure the provider had oversight and governance of the quality and safety of services. These included checks on the competency of staff to perform their duties, ensuring the home looked welcoming to people and identifying and making appropriate referrals for people and regular audits. The provider also analysed such areas as accidents and incidents, complaints and falls to look for trends and whether any further actions were required. Policies and procedures were in place to help ensure correct and safe processes would be followed by staff while carrying out their duties. Further links to other systems to ensure any safety alerts would be effectively shared, such access to updates from the Medicines and Healthcare Producers Regulatory Agency alerts. The provider completed its own compliance monitoring and action plans were followed where areas for improvement were found. Other provider actions had helped to improve quality in the service. For example, extra support had been provided to catering staff to help improve quality and reduce food waste. Catering staff have been set up with a communication and support mechanism and further meetings and conferences for Chef managers are planned. The provider had ensured staff completed their required training. Leaders provided examples of where staff had learning delivered on an individual basis or in small groups when needed to help ensure staff could fully engage in the training and understand it.

People told us they had access to other healthcare services as needed and could access the community to maintain their friendships and local connections.

Staff and leaders showed enthusiasm about forthcoming projects and work with the local community to spread awareness of their service and offer support to those that needed it. This included a pen-pal scheme with the local nursery. Staff and leaders spoke positively about working relationships with a range of stakeholders.

Partners found staff were willing to work with them and to follow any recommendations and advice when this had been given. Advice from other professionals had been incorporated into care plans and risk assessments and evaluated at least monthly. Partners commented they found learning from investigations to be implemented and evaluated and the management team to be transparent and ask for support if they were unsure about anything.

Leaders had been pro-active in taking steps to establish links to, and work in partnership with, the local community. For example, links had been established with the local community police team resulting in visits to the home by local children and police. We saw a ‘pen-pal’ letter writing scheme had been established with other local children’s groups. Leaders offered community groups a space to meet, and we saw this offer had been utilised by local groups such as a carers support group and a health charity group. Other partnership working was being explored, for example on how to provide transport options for people needing to attend medical appointment, and staff were involved in sponsoring local organisations raising money for charity.

People felt the staff were approachable and they would feel confident to raise any concerns with them. People and relatives told us any issues had been dealt with openly and resolved to their satisfaction. People felt they had the opportunity to attend meetings and share their views. One person told us they were content living at the service as, “‘I feel settled and I’m able to do what I want.”

The provider took opportunities to develop learning and explore different innovative ways of working. For example, they had developed a new tool to help them observe people’s experience of care, identify how engaged people were and help to reduce boredom and exclusion. As reported previously, the provider had made improvements to the lighting in the home to help people stay connected to the cycle of natural daytime and nighttime. Leaders told us this would be monitored to see if there would be any evidence to show if the lighting changes had positively impacted on people’s experiences. They explained their learning would inform the provider’s roll out of lighting changes at other locations. Regular manager meetings took the opportunity to share any learning and how developments can be supported. Other achievements had included a significant reduction in food wastage at the home, the introduction of electronic systems for such areas as medicines and maintenance management. The provider’s electronic processes to monitor incidents as well as the provider’s care planning systems had the flexibility to be used to share information and enabled the provider to respond to trends and patterns quickly. Staff had access to training materials electronically and so could complete their training when convenient to them. The provider had supported a volunteer placement scheme and 7 volunteers had gained experience of working in care in the last year, with 1 volunteer going on to gain employment at the service. The provider produced an annual ‘lessons learned analysis’ that included a summary of significant learning and findings from audits, complaints, compliance visits and action plans. There was a clear culture of learning lessons and looking to use innovative approaches to manage the service at the home.