Townsend Manor

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

People told us they were happy living in the service and felt that staff treated them with kindness. People were not always offered choices. Choices were not recorded in the care plans especially in relation to the gender of the care worker they would like to provide their personal care. People’s dignity was not always maintained. However, staff encouraged people to remain as independent as possible.

This service scored 60 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People told us they were happy living in the service and felt that the staff treated them with kindness.

Staff spoke about people in a caring way, a staff member told us, “We [staff] absolutely adore the residents.”

The local authority have been working closely with the service to make improvements.

Our observations showed that staff supported people with kindness. A person’s daily notes showed when they had been distressed the staff had supported them in a compassionate way.

People were not offered meaningful activities or engagement. One person told us, “Staff don’t come and chat with me or ask me what I need. I would really like a bit more company.” Another person said, “We get a printed sheet each week with a list of activities, although sometimes things get cancelled.”

Staff informed us there was no budget for activities and the service had to fund raise to provide these, such as to source visiting entertainment. There were two members of staff allocated to provide activities including alternative weekends. There was a programme of activities in place, however, we noted that there were several activities in the lounge that were led by care staff. Due to personal care needs staff were not always able to provide these activities. A member of staff told us, “There is not enough staff, we don’t have time to sit with people of do any activities… People need more activity than just sitting in a chair all day –we just don’t have the staff.”

During our visit, people attended a holy communion service with and hymns. Although there was a lack of interaction for those people who were being cared for in their rooms which increased people’s isolation and boredom. One person told us they were lonely. On our second visit we saw people and relatives enjoying an afternoon tea in the coffee area.

The manager understood improvements were needed in the provision of activity and social interaction. The manager told us they had employed two additional activities staff to extend the provision. They also told us how they had supported a person to a join a local gym and staff supported them to attend.

Whilst people were offered choices, for example, meals and drinks verbally by staff. There were no systems such as show plates to aid people to make their choice. We found not all people’s choices had been recorded. A person told us, “I like to have a female carer to help me, but this is not always possible… why do I have to have a man to put me to bed, staff are willing, but I don’t want a man.” There was no information in this person’s care records relating to their choice of gender of care staff, nor in the other care records we reviewed. Another person said, “I can have a shower and a wash, and they do ask me what I need and offer me choices.” A person told us how their independence had been promoted and respected, which included going out into the community when they wanted to.

We received some feedback from staff which demonstrated people’s choices were not always considered, for example night staff were to get people up and provide personal care for when the day staff came on shift. Staff told us that people were asked for their choices, although staff did not always follow people’s choice as instructions were provided by senior staff to get people up. Another staff member told us that sometimes the night staff assisted people to shower in the morning even if this was not their choice, but this assisted day staff to meet other people’s care needs.

Outings were recorded in the daily notes. During lunch we observed people had access to equipment, such as a plate guard, to aid their independence.

Although people had signed records to show they had consented to their care, where they had capacity to do so. People’s review of their care did not always show that the person or their relative had been involved in their review. One person’s review had ‘not applicable’ written in the box that asked if the person or their relative had been consulted during the review?

One person told us, “Biggest issue is with staffing, I ring the bell, but they don’t always come but I think they should. Staff are kind and helpful when they are available.”

Staff shared an example of when they had asked a person if they would like a shower and the person responded they did but had not liked to ask as they knew they were short of staff.

Staff were not always available in the shared areas to ensure people were safe, this was because they were busy supporting other people. For example, we observed a person trying to hit another person with a shoe, when staff were busy supporting other people. Staff did show up when they had heard the incident and prevented it from escalating. We could see staff were very busy, supporting people with their task-based care needs, there was very little time spent with people to provide social interaction.

Staff told us they were not regularly provided with one-to-one supervision meetings to discuss their work, identify any training needs and to receive feedback. Where staff had received supervision, this was not often, for example a staff member told us, “I have had 1 supervision in 2 years. In addition, there were no probationary and supervision meetings in the records for new staff.

The manager sent us a supervision and appraisal plan for the year, which showed some staff had received supervisions. We asked for details of the induction process to be sent to us, these were not received.