The Oaklea Trust (Durham & Northumberland)

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

Staff were kind and caring. People and relatives told us they were happy with the choices on offer and were involved in decisions about their care. They told us they were supported to live as independently as possible. While we observed some positive practices, we could not be assured processes supported people to make choices that they had the capacity to consent to. Staff did not have documented guidance about MCA and best interest decisions to support people with choices made on their behalf.

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.

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 told us the service was caring and they had independence, choice and control. One person told us, “I am independent as much as I can be". People told us about their friends, jobs, hobbies and relationships and told us staff supported them if they needed help.

Staff told us they gave people choices and helped people to live as independently as possible. One staff member told us, “We try and help our service users achieve their goals. We try and plan where possible depending on the goal and they rely on us to think of all aspects of what might need looking at. Goals don’t have to be huge tasks; they can be small everyday things that we take for granted.”

We observed that people were offered every-day choices. For example, what to eat and where they wanted to go on social outings.

Policies supported people’s independence, choice and control. However, processes were not consistently effective in supporting this. Although we found examples of good practice, we also observed times when practice needed improvement. For example, where items in houses (kettle and washing machine) were locked away for people’s safety.

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.