Grove Hill Care Home

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

In this key question we looked at 2 quality statements. People’s dignity was not always upheld, and leaders did not always act with compassion, and we identified a breach of the legal regulation in relation to dignity and respect. However, we observed some positive interactions between people, staff, and leaders. For example, we observed staff speaking with people kindly and offering some choices. We observed some people were supported to attend a pub lunch.

This service scored 55 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People told us: “Carers look after us well,” and, “Staff are nice to you.” Relatives spoke positively about the staff. One relative told us: “[The staff] are so lovely. They paint her nails; she always looks lovely and is always immaculate. There are no stains on any of their clothing either.” However, one relative told us their relative was often wearing other people’s clothes.

The manager explained how they ensure people are treated with kindness, compassion and dignity. They told us: “We look after the residents as if they were our own family, we give [people] choice, we make sure they have privacy, some people have district nurses who visit and don’t always want to go to their rooms, so we use privacy screens, we speak to people in a kind manner, we listen and support them.” However, during a staff feedback session one staff member described a person as a “like a newborn baby, as all you do is feed them and they go back to sleep .” We raised this with the manager who told us they would address this.

A member from the local authority safeguarding team told us they were concerned a person’s family had not been notified following a recent safeguarding incident. They told us “The family only found out from speaking with [another relative].” Another professional working within the service said they felt the service did not always promote a person’s independence, however, they then confirmed, once this had been raised, the service did improve on this.

Staff did not always use language to promote people’s dignity. We observed staff telling people to sit down during our site visits and then observed staff laughing at a person for sitting on another person’s mobility aid. There were various shared room arrangements in place within the service, and these did not always uphold or promote people’s dignity. We observed 2 people, who lacked the capacity to consent, sharing a room, and the risks relating to both people’s dignity being compromised had not been fully considered. We observed a commode in the middle of the room and were informed one person preferred to use a urine bottle, and the other person was incontinent. Both people had mental capacity assessments and best interest decisions in place for this shared room arrangement as they had been assessed as not having the capacity to decide if this was their preferred arrangement. However, these assessments and decisions had failed to recognise or address the concerns identified around people’s dignity. We raised this at the time of the assessment and the service moved the people’s beds further apart and informed us they would be supporting these people to use the bathroom facilities instead. However, during our assessment we were informed that one person often prefers to use a urine bottle instead of being supported to the toilet, therefore this change was not in line with the person’s preferences. Additionally, moving the beds apart did not address the privacy issues.

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.

We did not look at Independence, choice and control during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

Most people we spoke with told us staff were responsive to their needs. One person told us: “Staff come quickly” when they required assistance. Most relatives felt their relative’s needs were met effectively. One relative told us staff were not always available to respond to their relative’s needs and that they would “attempt to walk but has to shout for help”.

The manager explained how they ensured staff met people’s needs in an effective and timely way. They told us; “We set an emergency alarm and check to see how long staff take to respond. We have had some quotes to input a new system. People have sensor mats in place, we do call bell checks monthly. We do staff spot checks at night-time. We check that call bells are within reach. We also do visual supervisions.” However, these were not effective as they had not identified the concerns found during this assessment.

Staff were not always available to respond to people’s needs in a timely manner. For example, we observed one person crossing their legs and bending over several times who appeared to be in discomfort, and we observed other people living at the service informing staff this person needed to use the toilet, to which staff then supported the person. We observed another person telling a staff member that they were cold and observed the staff member responding by saying “I’m alright actually.” This staff member did not offer the person a blanket or cardigan. We observed another person asking several times; “When can I have a shower?” but staff were not present to respond to this person.

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.