Oaklands (Essex)

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We did not look at all quality statements for Effective at this assessment. The service was effective. This rating uses some scores from the previous inspection. People’s needs were assessed to determine what support they required and people were involved in the assessment process. People were able to consent to care as much as possible. Where they lacked the capacity to make decisions, decisions were made in their best interests, in line with legislation.

This service scored 62 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People and those important to them were involved in the pre assessment and the on-going assessments reviewing their care needs. Care plans were linked with risk assessments and referrals were made to external health professionals when needed. We observed a good staff to supported people ratio, staff were able to meet peoples needs. Care plans detailed peoples dependency level and pre assessment tool. We observed people needs being shared in the flash meeting and the manager identified who’s care needs were to be re assessed that day.

A member of the leadership team said, “The home manager completes a face-to-face pre assessment tool that reflects on the specific need of a resident, based on factors including how long it takes to dress, assist with nutrition and hydration, moving and handling, medicine administration and all aspects of daily living.”

The provider has a three-point pre-assessment process at Oaklands to ensure they are able to meet the needs of new service users. This includes a face-to-face assessment by the manager, this is then reviewed by the area director and the regional dementia manager reviews as final stage. Re-assessment follows the same process and a similar robust tool that identifies any changes in needs. Service users are continually reassessed as part of ongoing clinical reviews, changes are shared at flash meetings, resident of the day and the weekly GP round.

One person said, “If in pain I would speak to whoever comes to see me, I feel very safe, it is a feeling you get here.” A relative said, “The GP comes and visits, a dentist and optician have been. A choice of meals is always offered and liquidised in line with [relatives] health needs.”

A member of the management team said, “Our care plans are developed with the resident and relatives at the home. The Remembering together booklet is a key element of this process, as well as Information gathered from the face-to-face assessments. Each resident has a supplementary folder (or Room Folder) and the documents in the folders are only used where there is a rationale for the use of said document.”

The management team complete daily walk-rounds of the home to ensure compliance, effective interactions between staff and people are taking place and the wellbeing of the people is observed. Care-plan audits ensure that all elements of care for each individual is triangulated. The management team acknowledges there are improvements needed to the level of detail staff record in the daily notes. The notes were task focused and did not always reflect the good care observed during the on-site assessment. For example, we observed people enjoying bingo but their level of engagement and enjoyment was not captured in daily notes.

We did not look at How staff, teams and services work together during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

People experience support to make decisions in ways that suited their needs. For example, we observed some people being shown visual options to enable them to choose lunch, while others chose without prompting options that were of free choice and not on the menu. We observed staff offering choices to access the garden or take part in activities and allowing people time to make decisions.

Staff received training in the Mental Capacity Act which helped ensure they understood the principles of the act and put the training into practice. Deprivation of liberty safeguards applications were submitted to the local authority when people’s liberties were restricted to receive necessary care and treatment. This was monitored by the manager and reflected in people’s care plans.