White Hart House

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

Responsive – this means we looked for evidence that the service met people’s needs. This is the first inspection for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people’s needs were met through good organisation and delivery.

This service scored 68 (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 strived to ensure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with people, how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs. Care plans were person centred to ensure care was provided in accordance with people’s individual needs and preferences. For example, people could choose when they woke up and what they wanted to wear and eat. People were not always offered meaningful activities in the evening, and we saw staff missed opportunities to provide company and conversation to people during our out-of-hours visit. The manager was aware of this shortfall and started to make improvements during our assessment.

The service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity. A relative told us, “There is no discrimination encountered and the staff at the home are very good and my relative is comfortable with them.” Staff had completed training and understood the Equality Act. The manager told us, how they tried to ensure people were supported by the same health professionals who know them well.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs. People’s communication needs and preferences were clearly recorded in care plans. Staff ensured people had bespoke communication aids in place. A relative told us, “My relative has an electronic communication device and his key worker has been very good at encouraging them to use the communication aid. It is programmed so my relative can press a button to inform staff what they want.” Easy read documents were available. This meant people could make their needs and wishes known to staff.

The service made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment, and support. They involved people in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result. A relative told us, “They are open about how to make complaints, there have been a couple of things which I have queried, and I had a response straight away. They always respond to emails and are always willing to talk to me if there is something that I want to explain about my relative as naturally they are still learning about them.”

The service made sure that people could access the care, support, and treatment they needed when they needed it. Staff understood the needs of autistic people and people with a learning disability and worked hard to ensure that typical barriers faced by people were removed or mitigated against. Each person had an up to date hospital passport in place. This could be shared with other professionals and reduce potential barriers to care within the health and social care system.

Staff and leaders actively listened to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support, and treatment in response to this. Staff treated people as individuals and made reasonable adjustments for anyone that needed them. Staff understood how the Equality Act applied to their role. The manager told us, “We ensure people are supported to access the community the same as everyone else. If anyone wanted to work, we would support them with that. There are roles within our organisation which people can become involved with. People are given training and are paid for the work they do.”

People were not always supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end of their life. Although end of life care was not required at this time, we found some people did not have end of life plans in place. Other people did but these contained minimal details which did not include how a person would want to be supported at the end of their life. This meant the provider had not considered people’s future and end of life planning to ensure if people’s health were to deteriorate staff would know how people wanted to be cared for at the end of their lives.