Alexandra Lodge Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Staff knew people well and understood their care needs, likes and dislikes. However, care plan documents were not robust enough to guide staff practice and risk assessments were not completed. Staff were not clear about what person-centred care was and the importance of this in ensuring people receive empowering care and are treated as individuals. People had access to food and drinks which was monitored, and people’s weight was checked and recorded. Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) scores had not been calculated which was highlighted to the registered manager at the time. MUST is a tool to identify adults who are malnourished, at risk of malnutrition or obese. At our initial visit the inspection team spoke with the registered manager as they had identified a person at risk of choking as needing an assessment from the speech and language team. A referral had been made at our second assessment visit. The provider did not always maximise the effectiveness of people’s care and treatment by assessing their health, care and wellbeing needs robustly. This meant there was not sufficient information to create a clear person-centred care plan to inform staff practice.

This service scored 33 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always maximise the effectiveness of people’s care and treatment by assessing their health, care and wellbeing needs robustly. The provider carried out an assessment of needs before people moved into the home. We observed that the assessment forms had not been completed in full and had some contradicting information in them. There was a lack of clear information regarding people’s care needs collected at assessment. This meant staff did not have access to information and paperwork when people moved in to effectively, and safely, support people.

Although relatives told us they had been involved in assessing their loved ones needs, people’s care needs were not always properly assessed by the provider. This meant people may not experience care appropriate to their current needs, preferences or wishes. However, we did not observe any people receiving care that they seemed uncomfortable or unhappy with.

Conversations with staff about person centred care was varied. Person centred care places the individual at the heart of their care and promotes people being treated as individuals. One staff member who spoke with us about person centred care said, “It’s looking after them in general .” Another staff member spoken told us, “You know everything the person needs, their needs are all different, it’s about finding out who the person is themselves.”

We found that people’s care and treatment was not planned with them and did not always include what was important and what matters to them. We observed care plan documents had little information which would not be sufficient to ensure people received care that incorporated what was important and mattered to them. On our second visit we found that care plan documents were improved and contained more detail including people’s preferences, likes and what was important to them. Nutrition and hydration was monitored and people’s weight was checked and recorded. Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) scores had not been calculated which was highlighted to the registered manager at the time. MUST is a tool to identify adults who are malnourished, at risk of malnutrition or obese. A person identified at our previous visit as needing an assessment from the speech and language team had been referred. This all meant people were more likely to receive care and treatment that included what was important and what matters to them.

The registered manager told us that they had had concerns about one person, on admission to the home. “[Name] was not eating well and we were worried about their weight, they hadn’t had a very nutritious diet before they came to us and we had to encourage them to eat.” The registered manager showed the inspection team records of the persons weight being monitored and a record of what they had eaten and drank which evidenced the person was receiving a more varied diet and had put on weight.

Relatives had no concerns regarding people’s care and treatment. Whilst on site we observed people were supported to have meals and drinks, and drinks were available throughout the day.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Consent to care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.