Enter and view: Stadium Court Wedgwood Unit, Stadium Court

Healthwatch Stoke on Trent conducted an Enter and View on Wedgwood Unit, Stadium Court Residential & Nursing Home, a publicly run care home with 33 places on the 23rd of August 2017 at 10:30am.

This visit was arranged as Healthwatch had received evidence of worrying considerations including, verbal evidence from members of the public and professionals regarding various issues, and the CQC report had showed services to be either inadequate or requiring improvement.

Observations by the Enter and View representatives reported that:

The corridors and decorations were quite plain and decoration looked tired in some areas, the building was light and airy, all public areas were furnished and tidy, all furniture was in good condition, grounds were easily accessible and were generally well kept, a tuck shop was located next to the shed, the unit provides a pleasant environment and is clean but parts of the building are now in need of decoration, the team believes much more focus needs to be put into physical stimulation as this is a rehabilitation unit, food provision and choice seems to be good but a kitchen unit to allow residents to reacquaint themselves with retrograde step in rehabilitation, staff seem keen and dedicated to resolve issues, the fire exit was in clear and available, the visitors book was in use, hand sanitiser was in use on entry of the unit, display information was printed too small and needs to be more accessible to residents, the lounge was reasonably sized and well decorated, there was a menu with options along with a night bites menu, only two staff members were available to allow staff to move residents after they had finished breakfast, a gazebo was stored in the lounge which was a potential trip hazard, the team were allowed access to one residents room which was clean and tidy, in two of the corridors trolleys were observed blocking access to a disabled toilet, a residents door handle was broken at the top and unscrewed causing the risk of an accident, a key had been left in a cupboard door, a resident was being taken to the toilet by one staff member but another commented that they needed a walking frame putting doubt into staff understanding of patient needs, there is no full time activities manager, only one activity took place during visit a game of higher and lower with a deck of cards, the team expressed concern that there was not much activity to keep residents stimulated.

The Deputy Unit Manager was asked if any of the activities were centred around preparing people to go home and if they included things like food preparation or access to a physiotherapist. The answers included the unit has a physio, an occupational therapist, and two technicians that are there everyday, staff encourage residents to walk to the lounge. When queried about the lack of activities the manager said they may have been disrupted due to a hairdresser being on site.

Residents commented that:

They were very well looked after, one resident could not respond as her hearing aid needed a new battery, resident commented she had been waiting for it to be done all morning, I have been here for 6 weeks and I am very happy my care could not have been better.

The Manager responded to the report explaining that decoration is ongoing throughout the unit and he would take on the teams comments on brighter colours helping the rehabilitation of residents.

Healthwatch recommendations were:

While the Unit is undergoing re-decoration, we strongly urge those in charge to consider providing better visual stimulation rather than ‘shades of beige’. It is generally accepted that residents in rehabilitation units respond better with visual stimulation, similarly, we appreciate that the residents are intended to be there for a short period of time (4 – 8 weeks) but a wider range of activities would again aid recovery, the removal of the ‘training kitchen is, we believe, a retrograde step and we would ask for this to be reinstated.