St Annes Residential Care Home

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 inadequate. This meant people were not treated with compassion and staff caring attitudes had significant shortfalls.

We received mixed feedback from people and their relatives in relation to how they felt people were supported with kindness, compassion and dignity. One relative told us their relative’s dignity was not always respected. Despite not always having time to read care plans and care plans being incomplete, staff tried to support people kindly. During this assessment, we saw staff treat people with dignity and respect.

This service scored 35 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We received mixed feedback from people and their relatives in relation to how they felt people were supported with kindness, compassion and dignity. One relative told us their relative’s dignity was not always respected. They commented, “They [staff] didn’t answer [Name’s] call bell for the toilet.” They also commented, that on another occasion they had been on the phone to [Name] when they needed the toilet, and no one answered their bell. On that occasion the relative terminated the call and rang the home themselves to ask staff to take [Name] to the toilet.

Despite not always having time to read care plans and care plans being incomplete, staff tried to support people kindly, a staff member said, “If someone wants things done [a certain way] we share it over at hand over and also put it in the care plan if it has changed .We ask them how they like things done, well I do anyway.”

We had not received any concerns about the service providing kind and compassionate care for people, from other health care agencies or professionals .

During this assessment, we saw staff treat people with dignity and respect. Staff knocked on people’s doors before entering and spoke to people using their preferred names. We witnessed positive and caring interactions between staff and people. People were allocated a shower or bath day, while people we spoke to were accepting of this, it was not dignified and did not treat people as individuals.

People at the service were accepting the care and facilities offered. The registered manager told us people were not routinely included in the planning of their care .

A staff member told us, “I don't have time to read the care plans.” Another staff member said, “No we don’t really have time to read the care plan. Information is passed over in the hand over between shifts, so things can get missed.”

Friends and relatives were able to visit people when they wished. The provider had a visitor’s policy in place. There were no restrictions on visitors, and we observed relatives and people visiting the service freely throughout our assessment.

People’s care plans were not person-centred. They were inaccurate, lacked information about people’s specific needs or contained conflicting information. Some care plans lacked any personal history of the person. Care plans and risk assessments did not describe people's needs and preferences or provided guidance to staff in how their person-centred care was to be delivered.

People told us they were not routinely involved in the planning of their care. Care was task driven, people were not able to choose when they had a bath or shower. The registered manager said there were, “Not enough staff for people to choose. How can we? What happens if everyone wants a bath at the same time.” They said that it was, “more convenient for staff to have a list.” One person told us, “You have to fit in with everyone else.” Another told us they, “have set days for a bath. Mine is Sunday and Wednesday.” However, people told us they felt their choices were listened to relating to what they wanted to eat.

The registered manager said, people were, “not involved as much as they should be. Their needs and wishes were respected but they were not routinely involved in care planning.” The registered manager was not able to provide any evidence to demonstrate that people’s needs and wishes were respected.

People were supported with an ongoing programme of activities. The activity coordinator had developed a programme of activities. We observed that the activity coordinator had a positive impact on the wellbeing of people using the service.

People's care plans did not fully document their wishes to support them to be treated as individuals. "This is me" documents had not been completed for everyone. This meant people’s individual preferences were not recorded. Audits and checks had not identified this shortfall. Care plans continued to be inconsistent.

Relatives had raised concerns with CQC about a lack of staff urgency in responding to people’s immediate needs. People told us they sometimes had to wait for care. One person told us, “I have to fumble around by myself to get ready otherwise I might have to wait until 10am to get helped by staff.”

A relative told us, “They didn’t answer [Name’s] call bell for the toilet so [Name] fell out of bed and broke their hip.” The same relative told us they had, “been on the phone to [Name] when they needed the toilet, and no one answered their bell. So, the relative terminated the call and rang the home themself to ask staff to take [Name] to the toilet .”

There were insufficient staff to respond to people’s immediate needs. A staff member told us, “No, we are not enough staff. And the manager doesn't care. … The bell, it's going on and on. Too many residents to help them to the toilet.... we need more staff .”

Staff were not always attentive to people’s individual needs. For example, we saw that a person rang their call bell pendant for 18.5 minutes before it was answered. It was unclear whether this was due to insufficient staff or staff’s lack of understanding of the importance of responding promptly. The manager lacked oversight of the response times for staff. While there was the ability to look at, and audit call bell times there was no evidence the manager had completed these audits.

Staff told us they did not always feel valued and supported by the management team. A staff member told us, “They [the registered manager] don't praise staff at the moment. I had supervision… [it was a] waste of time.” Another staff member told us that, “Sometimes the manager listens, sometimes not.”

The registered manager was unable to provide records to show staff had participated in formal one to one discussions or performance appraisals. The registered manager told us a senior staff member had carried out supervisions for all staff. However one staff member told us “Never had one, I was supposed to have one around 3 weeks ago but it keeps getting pushed back.”