Enter and View: Adel Manor Care Centre

Healthwatch Leeds carried out an announced Enter and View visit to Adel Manor Care Centre on 29th January 2024. The visit was part of a planned series of visits to care homes in Leeds, prompted by feedback from Leeds City Council, Care Quality Commission and members of the public.  They spoke to 45 people.

The care home is newly built and has lots of communal areas furnished to a high standard, big windows and plenty of natural light creating a spacious and calm living environment. Outside, there is a large well-maintained courtyard garden to which most rooms on the ground floor had direct access.

The majority of people who were able to share their views said staff were respectful and that they or their relative felt safe at Adel Manor.

The majority of respondents said that there was variability in how caring they felt staff were with a lack of consistency between different staff. People talked about differences in staff attitudes and staffing levels affecting quality and timeliness of care.

Although the majority of people (89%) who were able to answer the question said that care met their needs, four people said that it didn’t. This was due to time taken to respond to care needs, high turnover of staff and bathing and showering not always happening when it should. Several people mentioned that it sometimes took over 10 minutes to answer the call bell. All respondents said they or their relative were supported to be as independent as they wanted to be.

Eight respondents (18%) said that they felt that care was better during the week due to lower staffing levels in the evening and because mangers weren’t there at weekends. Some people said that it took longer on evenings and weekends to get the care they need.

There was mixed feedback about the activities on offer. There was positive feedback about the trips out, but other feedback suggested that activities didn’t cater for all residents’ needs, especially those with dementia or who were unable to join in group activities.

People on the intermediate care floor generally said they felt they were able to exercise choice in their daily routine more often, mainly because they said they were able to do more things independently. On the residential, nursing and dementia floors comments indicated that preferences about daily routine weren’t consistently met.

There were mixed views as to how the home responded to people’s cultural needs. Some people weren’t sure what was available and said there was a lack of follow up in terms of meeting needs. Although there was a visiting vicar, it was unclear as to whether needs of other cultures and religions were routinely followed up.

Only five people (15%) said they had been involved in reviewing their or their relative’s care via their care plan. Of these, three said that it had only happened because they had requested it.

There was good awareness of the ways people could share their feedback, either by the regular relatives’ and residents’ meetings or directly with the manager.

The majority of people said they knew how to raise a concern or complaint and would feel comfortable doing so. Feedback indicated that the home had been responsive when people had raised concerns.

Although we didn’t specifically ask about food, quality and choice of food was an issue that we received many comments about, the majority of which were negative. People reported that food was sometimes cold, poor quality and didn’t always meet dietary requirements.

Conversations with the manager indicated that the care home had systems in place that was helping them to meet the Accessible Information Standard. In the displays around the home, Healthwatch observed variability in terms of accessibility due to font size and use of pictures.

The report contains recommendations about staff attitudes, call bell response times, activities, setting up and implementing systems to record and act on people's cultural and religious needs, care plans and food provision.