Enter and view: Banbury Heights Nursing Home

Healthwatch Oxfordshire visited Banbury Heights Nursing Home to observe how the facility operates and provides its services, collect views from residents, volunteers, and staff on services and identify ‘Best Practice’ and highlight any areas of concern.

Findings: 

• The care home is run by a dedicated staff team who aim to deliver excellent person-centered care and who work hard to make improvements.
• Every resident they spoke to said they felt listened to by the care home team, and that staff were accessible, friendly to residents and easy to talk to.
• Comments from residents about the environment and efficiency of the services, and the attitudes of staff were generally very positive.
• The care home was generally clean. Some of the glass in the picture frames and in the doors were quite smudged – these require wiping over to be smudge-free. Banbury Heights Nursing Home, Enter and View Report 6 • The carpeted area in the front entrance and stairs, although old, were clean.
• The garden had chairs, tables, and umbrellas, which were all in good repair. The flower beds were a little untidy and the courtyard needed a good sweep. A clear Perspex screen that was installed during COVID enables people to talk to each other via this screen and sitting in the small garden room.
• The services offered by the care home are impacted by staff shortages due to the care home being unable to recruit.

Recommendations:

• Clear signs needed on administrative offices and welcoming areas, identifying admin staff and role, welcome signs for visitors on arrival with information about who to speak to.
• Reorganise the information about main entrance (labelling) including alarms, key safe, light box, fire security and exit code pads to avoid confusion in case of emergency. Simplify fire safety maps to provide clearer visual information.
• Continue to carry out necessary internal and external refurbishment and repairs including tidying up yard area to make it more welcoming?
• Provide all staff with name badges to wear during shifts. Banbury Heights Nursing Home, Enter and View Report 15
• Identify more personal care providers to offer more frequent services including hairdresser, chiropodist.