The Cotswolds

This assessment was carried out in response to an increase in concerns as well as an aged rating, with our last assessment taking place in 2020.

The service is a care home providing accommodation, nursing and personal care for up to 41 people primarily with acquired brain injuries.

The provider had good systems and processes in place, providing them with good oversight of the service. They worked with people, relatives and staff to gather feedback and embed changes where needed.

We found some issues during our assessment, for example, not everyone was clearly involved in care planning, and the provider weren’t always adhering to frequencies around health and safety servicing. However, many issues we found, the provider had already identified. They were able to evidence this within an action plan they were already working to. We could see that some actions had already been partially completed.

The provider had a large multi-disciplinary team, which consisted of many different professionals, such as nurses, doctors and psychologists, with the shared aim of amplifying people’s experience of neurorehabilitation. Professionals utilised not only their knowledge, skills and experience, but also nationally recognised tools, adapted for the relevant service to reach this goal. Additionally, the provider worked collaboratively within the sector with the aim to improve people’s care experiences on a wider level.

We found there was an open culture, which incorporated kindness and collaboration, and person-centredness was upheld in many aspects of the service. This filtered through all staff, of varying roles and professions. There was room for improvement to ensure all people experienced the same level of person-centred care.

Staff were happy in their roles, and most staff felt supported. There was an overall feeling amongst staff that they needed more front-line staff, to provide a truly meaningful and person-centred service to people. One staff member told us “I feel quite guilty, because I feel like I’m not able to give the best standard of care I’ve always given at the moment and that upsets me.”

Training was provided to staff to enable them to complete their role to a good standard, however there were some gaps where there had been a delay in the provider sourcing and organising training. This could have had impact on people’s experience; however, we did not find evidence of impact during our assessment.