Enter and View: Pat Shaw Residential Care Home, Tower Hamlets

Since this visit, Pat Shaw House has permanently closed down.

Healthwatch Tower Hamlets first visited Pat Shaw (then taken over by Gatewar Housing) on 24th November 2014 and feedback from residents and staff was good.

This second visit on 24th August 2016 was conducted as a result of a few whistle-blowing phone calls during 2016, (mainly from care staff) highlighting concerns that the residents care was being neglected because of the high numbers of agency staff being recruited to provide care by the provider. The CQC had given a rating of ‘requiring improvement’ in May 2016.

Pat Shaw House is a residential care home for older people, with 38 individual self-contained flats. It no longer has a dedicated ‘Activities Coordinator’, organising activities is now left to the discretion of care workers and team leaders for a more person-centred care. Once a month a residents meeting is held for them to give their feedback on care, staff, food, activities and things they would like to do. 60% of the staff are permanent and 40% of the staff are agency.

HW team spoke to 7 residents (some with Dementia) for feedback:

• Most residents seem to be “happy and safe” at the daily support they are receiving. The staff are good and listen to them. Residents commented that they like the food and there is sufficient choice.

• The temporary/agency nature of care staff is residents’ biggest grievance. Also, they feel there is not enough activities and outings as staff are too busy (restricted with time) and there is not enough of them to take them out on a regular basis e.g. to the shops, parks.

• There was a good example of how the provider is helping to overcome resident’s isolation and loneliness.

They also spoke to 7 staff members:

• Staff feedback was generally mixed, overall the agency staff gave positive feedback about working there, they liked the fact that management are flexible with their working hours and are supportive and seem organised. The permanent staff are not generally happy about the ‘staff reassessment programme’ being implemented by the provider which has left them feeling vulnerable and uncertain. They also felt the over reliance on agency staff is impacting on how residents are receiving their care.

HW representatives made some recommendations:

• Management should ideally resolve the recruitment and staff reassessment programme issues of permanent staff within a specific timeframe to ensure stability within the home. HW Tower Hamlets would like regular updates on this.

• Management organise more regular activities and outings for residents. During the visit in November 2014, activities were a strong element of the service, however it appears that this has declined since then.

• Pat Shaw House link up with other befriending schemes such as ‘Amend’ in the case that the ‘Magic Me’ plans to extend the befriending scheme does not come to fruition.

• Pat Shaw house link up with community groups and schools as previously, it seems that all the community links under the previous manager had been lost since the previous visit.

A response from the provider Gateway Housing is included in the report, but no evidence of impact is shown.