Birch Abbey

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

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the provider involved people and treated them

with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has

changed to requires improvement. This meant people did not always feel well-supported, cared

for or treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 60 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We did not look at Kindness, compassion and dignity during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

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.

The provider did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

During our inspection, the recently appointed activities coordinator resigned, which resulted in inconsistencies in the availability of activities. The provider implemented a contingency plan, allocating 2 additional staff members each day to support activities until a replacement was found. We observed people being offered choices of where to sit in the dining room and lunch options. However, the choices of lunch offered to people did not always align with the actual daily menu. Additionally, one person reported not being given a choice about their bedtime. The provider addressed this immediately.

The provider did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. For example, some incidents had highlighted a delay in staff seeking medical advice and medication. We also observed some delays in call bells being answered or instances where sensor alarms were switched off, for example, one person’s call bell was going off for 9 minutes before staff attended. Family members we spoke to also raised this an ongoing concern. One relative told us,“The alarm was not switched on at all”. The provider is in the process of upgrading the existing alarm system and, in the interim, has increased the frequency of checks on people’s alarms.

The provider did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care. Some staff members told us they did not feel appreciated and felt the management team had been dismissive when they raised concerns relating to their own mental health. This was fed back to the management team who had put some measures in place to improve staff wellbeing. The registered manager also planned to restart the ‘employee of the month’ scheme, which had not been running since June 2024.