Abbey Village

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

Staff did not always meet people’s needs in a manner that promoted their independence and personal choices. Whilst some interactions were positive, care was generally task focussed and staff did not always promote people’s dignity. This included a lack of timely support with meeting people’s personal care needs. People were supported to maintain relationships with those important to them and there were some activities available at the home.

This service scored 65 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People’s experience was inconsistent. One person told us staff were, “Definitely kind and caring” but others were less satisfied and felt their dignity was not promoted. One person gave examples and said they were not supported to bathe or shower at the times they wanted. This was confirmed by records which showed gaps indicating personal care was not offered every day. One person became distressed that staff did not come promptly when they needed support with a continence issue.

Staff told us they always respected people by gaining consent and knocking on people’s bedroom doors before entering. However, some staff told us they didn’t always have time to spend with people. They said they would try go back to people if they were busy. One commented, “We just haven't got the staff. Day staff just don’t spend time with people, sitting and talking.”

Health professionals told us staff knew people and on the whole they were kind, although one said some were brisk in their manner.

Although some interactions were positive and polite, in the main, interactions were task focussed. We did not observe staff having meaningful or lengthy conversations with people. We saw people’s dignity was not always maintained. For example, staff talked about people in front of others. We observed several occasions where people needed support to go to the toilet and staff were not present, and sometimes people were left waiting for support when they had been incontinent. We saw examples where someone’s clothing was not appropriately covering them, and staff did not intervene promptly to ensure the person’s dignity. We noted two people’s fingernails were dirty and on checking the care records for one of these people, we found these showed nail care had only been given once over a two week period. We identified a breach of regulation in relation to person-centred care.

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 and relatives told us staff did not always recognise when they needed personal support. Where they did, they do not always have time to give it. One person told us, “They are not here when I need them.” There were mixed views about access to activities and the community. One person told us there was “Lots of choice, there is always something happening.” However, other comments from people included, “There are activities, but I’m not bothered by them as they are mainly for women” and, “They apparently have a van to take us out into the community. This is what they told me when I first came. It was broken at the time and it is still broken.” A relative told us that it would be nice if staff understood and made better use of people’s individual personal histories in order to plan activities that would be of more interest to them. Another commented, “If we didn’t support [our relative] to go out I don’t think they would go anywhere. They (staff) are not proactive about anything like that.” The registered manager told us they were looking to improve activities at the service to appeal to male residents.

Staff told us there were sufficient activities for people, although at the time of inspection the activities coordinator was off work. Staff confirmed people had access to family and friends. People were able to have visitors whenever they liked.

We observed some activities taking place at the home, such as a ‘pub afternoon’. There was though limited interaction for those who chose not to engage in the group activities. Staff did not always recognise when people required support to maintain their independence. Staff did not always demonstrate that they were able to meet people’s needs in a manner that promoted their independence and personal choices.

Care plans were not always developed promptly on people’s admission to the home, which meant staff did not have access to timely information about how to promote people’s independence and choices.

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.