People with dementia are not always able to tell us about their experiences, so we used a formal way to observe people in this inspection to help us understand. We call this the 'Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). This involved us observing five people who used the service for a period of one hour and recording their experiences at regular intervals. This included people's mood, how they interacted with staff members and other people who used services and their environment.The SOFI observation was conducted within the ground floor lounge area. Throughout the observation we saw all staff treat people with respect along with a well meaning and kind approach. We observed examples of good communication skills by some staff that utilised eye contact and touch to engage with people who used services. For a brief spell we observed one person who used the service become verbally abusive to staff members while they confidently used a hoist to transfer the person from a lounge chair to a wheelchair. The staff members handled the verbal abuse in a calm and appropriate manner. It was a warm day and we observed several examples of care staff encouraging people to drink.
During our SOFI observation we saw that there were sufficient staff numbers on duty, to meet people's needs on the ground floor.
We saw some staff interactions that could have been handled more appropriately by utilising better use of verbal communication. Care staff appeared to more readily focus on people who were more talkative or active, which meant some people who appeared more passive or withdrawn did not receive any or minimal staff interaction during our period of observation. There were minimal structured activities observed. A small number of people were involved in preparing the mixture for scones, but the majority were not involved in any meaningful activity.
We observed care informally on the first floor for a brief period. Two staff members were limited to providing one to one care. On some occasions this meant there appeared to be insufficient staff available to meet people's needs. For example, we observed one occasion where someone needed help and support to go to the toilet and it took a little time for a member of staff to become available. On another occasion a member of staff had to leave one person before combing their hair because another staff member needed assistance. This meant the person waiting for the member of staff to comb their hair became very distressed until the carer returned.