Enter and view: Harmony House Residential Home

Healthwatch Salford carried out an Enter and View visit to Harmony House, a residential care home with places for up to 12 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 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.

Overall from the nine individuals Healthwatch Salford spoke to, and from what was observed at the home, it was clear that the manager and their team put considerable effort into the home and caring for residents. This was reflected in the CQC inspection on 31 August 2017, which re-rated the care home from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’ on all areas.

The residents and staff were very positive about the care home and it was clear that:

• Residents and staff both felt able to have their say and there were meetings in place to encourage feedback and ideas to be put forward.
• Residents had access to and took part in a variety of activities, some with support from staff. Residents were taken by staff on trips to places like Blackpool or the cinema on a regular basis or as requested, giving the residents access to a wider range of activities and enabling them to take part in hobbies that they would have enjoyed previously to living at the home.
• Choice was given for meals and the communal kitchen and dining area was used by residents.

Healthwatch Salford made four recommendations on:

• Having a say
• Activities
• Food and mealtimes
• Physical access.

The report includes a positive response to these recommendations from the service provider.