Widecombe Nursing 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

We identified 1 breach of the legal regulations in relation to person centred care. People’s preferences were not always considered when planning people’s care. People did not have choice and control over their daily lives. The provider did not always promote workforce wellbeing.

This service scored 50 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People we spoke to said, “This is not a happy place. The staff do not come and speak with you.” Another person told us, “The staff do not really know me, they have not asked me what I like or anything so that makes it a bit harder.” A relative told us, “ I believe [relative] is treated with dignity and respect. Staff are all different, but they all engage very kindly with him, they rephrase and paraphrase.” One person, when asked about living in the service said, “The way I explain this place is a 'cruise to nowhere'” A relative told us, “They get [relative] up every day, they have to be hoisted and put into a recliner chair, sometimes it’s midday before they’re up as it takes two people. I have discussed it and they have explained the difficulties they face.”

We observed an activity in the lounge area. People were not given a choice of what they would like to do, instead people were handed a puzzle to complete. People were not actively engaged in this activity. We observed very little interaction with people during our site visits. The interactions we did observe were task led. For example, to provide a drink or to remove crockery. We observed minimal conversation with individuals.

The provider did not create a supportive and responsive environment tailored to peoples preferences; care plans lacked detailed guidance on how to support people experiencing emotional distress. Care plan contained limited information about people’s likes, dislikes and preferences, this did not promote person centred care and support.

People we spoke to told us they did not have choice and control over their daily lives. One person said, “There is nothing to do here apart from watching the TV, every now and then I get a newspaper, but staff haven't bought one around for a little while now.” Another person told us, “If there was no TV I would lose my mind and do my nut. There is nothing else that happens here, I do nothing. I just mind my own business”.

Staff told us they provided choices for people and were aware of their preferences, however we did not see choice being offered during our inspection.

We observed people were not always provided with choices. For example, we saw people were provided with a snack after lunch. This was either a yoghurt or a biscuit. People were given a choice of biscuit or yoghurt flavour as staff made this decision for them.

People did not have choice and control over their daily lives. Care plans did not have information about people’s social and emotional needs. For example, where people experienced periods of emotional distress, care plans did not contain enough information

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.

Staff told us the work environment could be very stressful at times. Staff told us the manager was approachable and listened to their concerns.

The provider did not always promote workforce wellbeing. We identified multiple incidents where staff had been exposed to harm. These were not captured as incidents and were not reviewed to ensure staff received support and debriefing or to identify any lessons learned. The registered manager had recently reintroduced return to work meetings to support staff back to work following absence.