Enter and view: St Martins Care Home

Healthwatch Worcestershire conducted an announced Enter and View visit. This is a way of ensuring that all services delivered are acceptable and the welfare of the resident, patient or other service-user is not compromised in any way.

St Martin’s provides accommodation and personal care for a maximum of 15 people, some of whom may have a dementia related illness. Along with other homes it was selected for the visit simply on the basis of various criteria such as achieving a mixture of large and small homes, those that provide nursing care and those that do not, achieving a geographical spread across the County and a mixture of large and smaller providers.

Healthwatch Worcestershire visited St Martin’s, on 23/09/2016.

The summary of findings highlighted areas in relation to patient feedback, staff feedback and observation. These findings include residents that were spoken to said that they were happy and content at the home. They observed staff interacting in a positive and caring manner with residents - we observed frequent, short interactions with residents as staff came and went. During the visit we saw some of the residents were engaged in activities for a period of time . A staff member is employed in the role of activities co-ordinator for 6 hrs per week, 2 hours on 3 weekday afternoons. There is no set activities programme at St Martins. We were told that activities can change from day to day depending on resident’s individual needs and wishes. The afternoon is the time when most activities take place. They asked how activities were changed to suit each individual’s needs, and in particular the needs of residents living with dementia. The Activities Coordinator told us that she used information about resident’s life histories and her knowledge of each individual to inform discussion and activities with the individual. They were told that each person’s care plan contains a life history. Individuals and, where possible, their relatives, were asked about their likes and dislikes and what that person enjoys doing. Staff would be aware of this information.

The recommendations within the report reflect the findings, and are in relation to themes of resources, activities and volunteers.