Heron Lea Residential Home

At the time of our assessment, there were 10 people using the service. The service is a residential care home providing care and support to older people, some of whom are living with dementia. This service has been under new ownership for a year, and this was the provider’s first assessment.

There were systems in place to ensure people received safe care. These were mostly robust, but some recruitment checks needed to be more stringent to ensure a full employment history was documented for all staff. Risks were well managed, and people had detailed assessments of potential risk. The provider acknowledged that potential choke risks, relating to the provision of additional snacks, needed to be included in the overarching risk assessment for that area of the service. Staff received fire training, but some staff were not confident about evacuation procedures for one person who used the service. The provider acknowledged this and provided additional training sessions during the assessment process. Medicines were safely administered, and oversight of medicines was good. Safeguarding incidents were well managed and reported appropriately. People who used the service were sensitively supported and advocated for throughout safeguarding incidents. The service was clean. The provider had made the environment as safe as they could, given the constraints of the building and a programme of works was in place to further improve this. The building and equipment were maintained to ensure they were safe.

People were involved in assessments of their own needs and were placed at the centre of their care. The provider worked with other health and social care professionals to meet people’s needs. Feedback from health and social care professionals was very positive and communication was praised. People were supported to be involved in decisions about their care and to give consent. The provider acknowledged records relating to a shared room needed to be reviewed to ensure consent to this was correctly established and documented.

People were treated with kindness and compassion and staff ensured people’s dignity was promoted. People were treated as individuals, according to their own specific needs. There were in house activities for people to join in, should they wish to. There were limited opportunities for people to engage with the local community, but the provider was working to increase these.

There was a shared vision and culture. Staff were supportive of the new provider and very positive about the changes that had been put in place, including a new electronic recording system for care records. Staff felt well supported by the provider and felt their skills and knowledge had been increased, making them more confident in their roles. Auditing processes were good, and there was oversight of the quality and safety of the service. Feedback from professionals was very positive about the new provider. One person said, ‘I find [the provider] really responsive and not frightened of hard work or challenging hardwired ideas and ways of working.’