The Ark Care Lodge Limited

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 that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last inspection we rated this key question requires improvement. At this inspection the rating has changed to good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. We observed staff communicated with people in their preferred language or communication method which helped to reassure people when they became distressed. A person told us, ”I like the staff here. They help me with things that I need help with, like the washing. They are all friendly.”

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. People’s care plans were person centred and reflected their needs, wishes and aspirations. For example, a person’s care plan included detailed information around their cultural wishes and how staff were to support them to pursue these, including support to converse with them in their first language and access to cultural media. We saw staff supported the person in line with their wishes through our site visits. A second person required access to outside space to help maintain their well being. We saw they were able to access the rear gardens whenever they wished to.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and well being. We saw people were enabled to maintain friendships and relationships, both within the service and in their community, and included weekend stays with relatives. People were supported to develop their independence as much as possible and were actively involved with the day to day running of the service and household tasks. People were supported to share their views through meetings and individually directly with staff and managers. For example, people had made decisions about where they wanted to go, how they wanted to spend their time and events they wished to celebrate.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. People’s care plans included information around how to support and communicate with people which we saw staff followed. This enabled staff to anticipate and respond to people’s needs in a timely way. We observed staff spoke with people with respect and empathy. A staff member told us, “We have time to get to know people really well and recognise when someone needs distraction or reassurance.”

The service cared about and promoted the well being of their staff, and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. A staff member told us, “Managers are really supportive to me as an employee and as a person. There is a culture here of good teamwork and I have learnt so much from other staff which has helped me to gain confidence and skills.”