Enter and view: Beechfields Nursing Home

Healthwatch Staffordshire conducted an Enter and View visit to Beechfields Nursing Home, a nursing care home for up to 35 residents. The home was evaluated against eight quality indicators: strong, visible management; staff with the time and skills to do their jobs; good knowledge of each individual resident, their needs and how their needs may be changing; a varied programme of activities; quality, choice and flexibility around food and mealtimes; ensuring residents can regularly see health professionals such as GPs, dentists, opticians or chiropodists; accommodating residents' personal, cultural and lifestyle needs; and being an open environment where feedback is actively sought and used.

Observation by the Enter and View representatives during their visit found there was evidence of good care of residents and of staff working well together at Beechfields Nursing Home. The team visited the first floor on a number of occasions and were concerned that they could not see a member of staff in attendance. They were concerned about the monitoring of the residents on the first floor who were confined to their rooms through illness. They thought consideration should be given as to how the regularity of checks can be ensured as they doubted that some residents would be able to summon help if they needed to. They were informed that clinicians from the local Medical Centre only visited if, upon telephoning the home, they were told a visit was necessary. They wondered whether regular visits from clinicians would be beneficial considering the fairly high number of quite poorly or terminally ill residents. As the home was in the process of completing a satisfaction survey, the team noted that the home may be able to use feedback from that survey to consider any adjustments that may be appropriate.

The report includes a number of recommendations and follow-up actions, as well as a response from the service provider.