Combe House

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

People were supported to be as independent as possible, and encouraged to make choices for themselves around the care they received. This maximised their freedom to make choices about their lives.

This service scored 70 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We did not look at Kindness, compassion and dignity during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Treating people as individuals during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

People were supported to be as independent as possible, creating a positive experience for them. People who lived at the service were allocated a job each day to encourage people to be involved in the daily life of the service. People carried out these jobs to the best of their abilities. People were encouraged to make choices about the menu and the life of the service. For example, a member of staff recorded each person’s ideas on what they wanted to see on the menu each week. The member of staff used pictures of meals to help people make choices. Relatives told us staff encouraged people to be independent where possible. One relative told us “They do try with aspects of personal care such as shaving, and involvement in food preparation.” Another relative told us “[My Family member] needs a lot of personal care; toileting, showering, but they do encourage him to do what he can for himself.” People’s choices were respected. For example, most people chose to eat their evening meal together, although one person preferred to eat with their one to one member of staff and this choice was respected.

Staff gave us examples of how they promoted people’s independence and choices. One staff member told us “Those who are not verbal we show them that they can choose like clothes. We give small options if not too much, like food to choose. We give them pictures and they choose like when we are doing menu planning, we do it weekly so everyone gets their favourite food. Service users get involved in cooking and setting the table. When we are cooking we involve them to prep vegetables The registered manager said of staff, “They understand the principle, ‘Doing with, not doing for.’"

People’s care plans recorded how staff should support people to make choices. This included recording people’s communication needs so staff understood how to provide people with information and how people communicated their choices and preferences. For example, one of the support plans we reviewed recorded that the person used objects of reference to make choices. We observed staff using objects of reference with the person during our site visits

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.