Enter and view: Sonesta Nursing Home Ltd
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Healthwatch Barnet conducted an announced Enter and View visit to Sonesta Nursing Home, an independently owned 32 bed Nursing Home, as part of a planned programme of work to review the provision of care in the Borough of Barnet.
Sonesta Nursing Home provides personal and nursing care, specifically for people coming towards the end of life. Sonesta regularly has residents with Parkinson’s, have had strokes or who have vascular dementia, diabetes and those on a peg feed. The Home is not, however, suitable for people with advanced dementia who require specific support.
The visiting Enter and View Authorised Representatives noted that the bedrooms and bathrooms looked clean and comfortable, although the rooms on the top floor appeared cut off as all bedroom doors were shut even when residents were in the rooms. Care plans were reviewed monthly with the visiting team being advised that the care plan was undertaken initially with the resident or a close relative, very often the resident forgot that they had one and rarely if ever asked to see this again.
All care staff are Nurses either trained in England or in their country of origin. If staff have come to England from elsewhere, they are counted as a GNVQ Level 4 until they are able study and bring their qualifications into line with British requirements.
The manager told the visiting team that they were aware of the Gold Standards Framework for End of Life Care but had not yet decided whether to pursue this. They said that they had invited North London Hospice in to give advice on certain residents but had not undertaken any training courses with them.
The report makes ten recommendations including that the Home contact Barnet’s Integrated Quality in Care Homes (IQICH) initiative to
increase Borough contacts and share expertise. There was also a recommendation that doors to bedridden residents’ rooms open unless specifically asked by the residents to close them, to avoid a feeling of isolation and also that individual activity sheets be placed in residents’ rooms so that friends, relatives, and staff could see what they had been doing.
The Manager responded positively to the recommendations but stated that the doors to bedrooms being closed was a Health and Safety fire regulation requirement. The Manager went on to say the suggestion of the individual activity sheets in residents' rooms has been implemented and contact with Barnet’s Integrated Quality in Care Homes (IQICH) initiative has been made.