St Margaret's Care Home Also known as Halle Healthcare Limited 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 the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. We reviewed 5 quality statements and found breaches of regulation in respect of person-centred care and privacy and dignity. People were not supported to have independence, choice and control in their daily living. People provided mixed feedback about the quality of care interactions they had with staff.

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.

Most people told us they were not always shown kindness, compassion and dignity. Their feedback included, “Staff sometimes walk in without knocking” and “I don’t like it here, some of them (staff) get on at me. They are not all kind. Some staff are not kind at all.”

We found examples of staff speaking about people's private matters in communal areas, which did not show respect for their privacy.

Prior to our assessment, partners were supporting staff and leaders in the home to deliver person-centred care. However, they had continued concerns about the quality of care as this was not always delivered with kindness, compassion and dignity.

We observed some examples of staff speaking kindly with people. However, we also found examples of staff not being kind and compassionate with people living at the home. For example, one person required products for intimate personal care, which staff had not provided after the person had made several requests for it. We found files with information about people left in communal spaces. The serious concerns we found about people's safety showed there was a lack of understanding as to how to care for people in a compassionate and dignified way.

Whilst some feedback was positive, people also told us that staff did not always treat them as individuals. Their feedback included, “I’ve asked to go out lots of times. If I try and go out, they shut the door and say I can't” and “When you ask staff for something they say ‘yes’, but they really mean ‘no’.”

Staff and leaders demonstrated they did not have a sufficiently sound knowledge of how to deliver person-centred care, which followed best practice.

We found examples when people were not treated with dignity and respect. For example, staff did not offer a drink to people or support them with a drink. We found a lack of meaningful interaction between people and staff.

There was a lack of systems and oversight to ensure people received care which respected them as individuals.

There was lack of evidence of meaningful activities being offered consistently, in particular, for people living with dementia. People were not being given a choice around their meals. Senior staff were waking people up early in the morning to provide them with medication. This was a breach of regulation 9 (Person-centred care) of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulation 2014 as staff and leaders did not deliver personalised care to people.

Leaders were unable to demonstrate how they monitored the quality of care and whether people were supported to have independence, choice and control.

We observed occasions when staff communicated well with people. However, we also found examples when people were not treated with dignity and respect. There was a lack of meaningful interaction between people and staff.

Systems to demonstrate oversight and leadership of the delivery of independence, choice and control were not in place.

People told us not all staff understood people’s needs and wishes and responded to changes. One person told us they needed support with intimate personal care, but when they asked staff for products they needed, they were directed to obtain these from their family without being offered a short term alternative while their family was purchasing these.

Staff and leaders did not always ensure people’s individual needs were being met.

Staff were not always responsive to people’s individual needs and they did not recognise and respect their decision making.

We received mixed feedback from staff in relation to how supported they felt by leaders. The provider could not demonstrate that staff recruited from overseas had been recruited safely and in line with current guidelines and regulations. We shared our concerns with relevant partners.

There was a supervision policy in place, but we found this was not being followed. Staff files showed no evidence of supervision support being provided. The registered manager told us they delivered this, but records were not provided to show this.