Acorn House - Laindon

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 did not look at all quality statements for Caring during this assessment. The service was caring. People were treated with respect and dignity. People were encouraged to be independent and offered choices. People were supported by staff who were caring. The rating uses some scores from the previous inspection.

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.

People, relatives and health professionals were positive about the kindness and care shown to them by staff. A health professional told us, “I have always found them to be compassionate and proactive and to have the skills and knowledge needed”. A family member told us, “It’s very good - warm, friendly, caring. They [staff] work hard to support residents, including holidays and activities outside.” One person told us, “Staff are nice.” We saw people being supported in a kind and respectful way. People were encouraged to participate in activities, access the community and we saw staff and people dancing to music and singing along.

Training records showed staff received training in dignity and person-centred care. Staff demonstrated empathy when speaking about people and in a positive way. We did not receive any concerns from health professionals related to kindness compassion and dignity.

We observed positive interactions between staff and people who used the service. For example, we observed a staff member supporting a person to access their money and they followed a person-centred approach throughout the interaction. Staff respected people’s privacy, we saw staff knocking on people’s bedroom doors and ensuring the bathroom doors were closed when in use.

People were treated as individuals. People told us they were able to go to their chosen activities such as the Disco on a Wednesday and going out for coffee and cake. One health professional told us, “They [staff] are good at supporting residents in personalised activities which help their mental health and quality of life.” A family member also told us that the provider had been responsive to their relative’s dietary requirements and supporting them with this. We saw evidence of this during our on-site assessment, for example with the adapted menu choices.

Staff spoke compassionately about the people who they were supporting. Comments included the importance of maintaining dignity, offering choices and helping to improve people’s quality of life. The registered manager also told us how important it is to treat people as individuals and respect their decisions.

During our on-site assessment we saw staff treating people with empathy and sensitively and staff were able to demonstrate their awareness of people’s likes and dislikes.

Care plans documented people’s strengths, needs, likes and dislikes. Staff told us, “Acorn House gives room for clients to have community access, every individual has got their own choice-based activities they do every day, be it swimming, dancing, disco, cycling, walking, going to day centres etc.” This was reflected within the care plans.

People were supported by staff who knew them well, offered choices and supported them in their independence. A relative told us their family member and other people who used the service were treated as individuals and staff treated them as the most important part of the home.

The registered manager and staff gave examples of positive outcomes for people who use the service. For example, staff told us, “One person was mostly nonverbal when they came here and now, they have around 100 words.” The registered manager told us one person had started attending a centre once a week and this had progressed to 3 days a week and they had learnt many new skills which had a positive impact on their wellbeing. Staff were positive about ensuring people had choice and their independence was promoted. Staff told us, “People’s choices are placed at the centre of their care making it person centred to them.”

The service had access to its own transport vehicle to facilitate people’s activities. During our on-site assessment, we saw staff helping people to enjoy activities outside of the home including driving them to the appropriate places. We also saw evidence of people being encouraged to participate in daily living tasks around the home such as cleaning.

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.