Welham House

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

We identified a breach of regulation in relation to treating people with dignity and respect. People were not always treated with kindness, compassion and dignity in their day-to-day care and support. Staff did not always communicate well with people or support them in a timely manner, which left people feeling frustrated. We found the provider had not done all that was possible to create a culture of dignified and respectful care. As there had not been a registered manager in place at the service since February 2022 the provider was fully responsible for the oversight of the service including the culture at the service.

This service scored 40 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People did not always feel that they were treated with kindness, compassion and dignity in their day-to-day care and support. A family member told us that their loved one had been woken up during the night and sworn at by a staff member. Another family member told us that they found the owner of the service to be rude and felt staff covered up issues such as people being threatened by staff.

We received whistleblower accounts of staff using inappropriate language towards people at the service. Staff who reported concerns said they felt managers and the provider covered up concerns.

During our assessment we spoke with a care consultancy agency who had been brought by the local authority to support the service. They told us “A very small number of staff treated people kindly however for the vast majority there had a functional approach at best to care. Interactions lacked compassion or an attempt to view the world from the persons point of view to alleviate issues and concerns.”

We observed mixed interactions from staff towards people at the service. Some staff approached people with kindness. However, there were times when the same staff would use inappropriate language or nick names that were not documented to be a preference of the person. We observed poor interactions where staff would direct people with their body language and not verbally communicate. Staff did not talk about each other with kindness and used inappropriate language to describe their colleagues. We found there to be blinds and curtain poles to be broken in bathroom and bedrooms leading to a lack of privacy and dignity for people at the service.

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.

People were given choice around day to day activities. However, we were not assured that people always received their 1.1 hours which will have led to them not always being able to do all the things they wanted to do. For example, people were given the choice of a group activity of going to the beach but there were no 1.1 activities offered. A family member told us that their loved one used to enjoy going to a day service run by the provider they [Person] felt that this was like going to work. The family member told us that nothing had been done to replace this, which they felt was a shame as it had given their loved one a sense of purpose.

Staff that we spoke with felt that people at the service were given choice and independence. Two people at the service had flats within the main home where they were able to make their own drinks and store their own food as they had their own fridges. A staff member told us that they had removed alcohol from a person as they had been drinking in their flat and that they [Person] were unable to take their medicines due to the amount of alcohol they had consumed. The staff member said that the [Person] were allowed to drink beer but not spirits. They could not show us a care plan or risk assessment where this had been discussed with the person.

We observed people at the home to have different levels of independence and choice. People who had their own flats were able to access food and drinks whenever they wanted to do so. Others at the service needed to be supervised in the kitchen. Although food and drinks were not locked away, there was a drinks trolley rather than people accessing drinks when they wanted to do so. We observed 1 person being very upset that they had damaged furniture in their room. They asked the manager several times when their furniture would be fixed and their bedroom decorated. The provider feedback to us that this person was waiting to move rooms and their new room would be decorated. Other people’s rooms showed that that had been involved in choosing the décor.

During the assessment we did not see any formal processes to support independence, choice and control.

We did not look at Responding to people’s immediate needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Workforce wellbeing and enablement during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.