Wood Hill House

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

Whilst we found staff were responsive to people’s day to needs, improvements were required to records to ensure they contained more individualised information. Staff knew people well and we observed people being listened to about their day to day needs. However, there was a lack of stimulation and activities required improvement. There was little feedback gained from people about their care and support and how this could be improved for them.

This service scored 61 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People were supported to have things that were important to them, for example, one person had their own coffee making facilities in their room. The service also had an on-site hairdressers. People were able to make day to day choices and had the opportunity to raise any concerns with managers during the managers daily walk rounds.

Staff told us the activities on offer had decreased due to the refurbishments at the present time. Staff told us people had chosen when to have their main meals and people were offered a choice of meals and home baking. A staff member said, “[Name] likes a particular milk, so they have this in their own fridge.”

We observed people being treated as individuals, by staff who knew them well. Some improvements could be made to care records to ensure theses were more personalised and included people's future goals and aspirations.

People were supported by a core staff team, who knew their needs well. We were unable to gain peoples feedback regarding care provisions, however records evidenced people were supported to access external professionals as required. For example, people were actively using advocates and people were supported with dental and doctors’ visits.

Staff had received training in a range of subjects to support people with their care needs, including oral care, managing food safely and nutrition and hydration. Staff told us the training had been useful to enable them to meet peoples health and care needs. Comments included, “The training is great.” And “We have practical training, as well as online.”

We received minimal feedback from partners regarding meeting people’s diverse health needs. However, we were told people appeared well looked after and people were being supported to move placements as required.

Whilst we found daily handovers were taking place, however we also found staff allocation records which did not contain the correct information about how many hours staff provided 1:1 care for a person, this could be confusing for new staff.

Some signage was available to guide people to orientate themselves around the home. Once refurbishments had been undertaken and the service had received new admissions, this would require exploring to ensure signage around the home was suitable for people.

Staff understood people's communication needs. At the time of our inspection no one required any specialised communication aids or documentation. However, staff told us how they used different communication styles as and when required, for example staff told us how they had previously learned adapted sign language for a person who used to live at the service.

Improvements were required about how staff provided information for people. People had not been involved in regular meetings to inform them about the ongoing changes in the service.

People and relatives were unable to provide us with feedback about feeling listened to. Whilst people could raise concerns with staff and management on a day to day basis and we saw people being listened to regarding their everyday care needs, improvements were required to ensure people had the opportunity provide feedback about their care.

People were not provided with enough opportunities to feedback their views about their care and support. There had not been any recent feedback surveys for people. This was discussed with the management team on the day of inspection, and we were informed this was due to concentrating on the changes which were taking place since our last inspection. The management team were aware this was an area which required improvements.

It could not be evidenced people were kept informed about any changes or provided with the opportunity to raise suggestions. People were using advocacy services, and some people had been involved in picking new furniture for the new rooms they were moving to in the future. There had been no recent complaints, however systems were in place to manage complaints effectively.

People had access to support and treatment when they needed it. People were supported from external professionals, such as dentists, neurologists, SALT’s and GP's. We observed staff providing 1:1 care to people throughout the day and ensuring they had their needs met.

Staff told us they supported people to access healthcare where required. Staff told us they had recently supported a person to receive dental care, this had been difficult, and plans were in place to explore different options. We saw staff asking if they were in pain and staff told us this person had recently had their pain relief increased, to manage their mouth pain.

We did not receive any feedback from partners about how the service supported people to access treatment.

Records evidenced people had referrals made to external professionals where required. Care records contained detail about people’s dietary needs as recommended by SALT’s.

People were not provided with enough meaningful activities or stimulation. A dedicated activities co-ordinator was not in place at the time of our inspection. However, people currently living at the service received 1:1 support and daily records showed staff offered some activities. Such as shopping, sitting in the garden and having their nails done.

Staff told us the elements of the service where people were currently residing were clinical, not stimulating and more activities were required. A staff said, “If I could change anything, it would be the environment. It needs some colour, some paintings and photos.”

It could not be evidenced how staff sought out people’s views about what activities they would like to do. There was some information in care records about what people liked to do with their time and activity logs were in place. However, records showed a range of days where people were sat watching TV in the lounge, it was not evident a range of activities were available for people to do or had been offered.

People and relatives were unable to provide us with feedback regarding planning for the future. One person was being supported to move to another service and had been involved in this process, they had been involved in choosing furniture, looking through photographs and being visited by staff from the new service.

At the time of our inspection staff were not providing any end of their life care. Staff told us how they had supported people to move to new placements.

There were no records in place in relation to people making plans for the future, including peoples wishes at the end of their life.