Becket House nursing home Enter and View report

The purpose of this Enter and View programme was to engage with residents, their relatives or carers, to explore their overall experience of living in Becket House Nursing Home. As well as building a picture of their general experience, we asked about experiences specifically related to how COVID-19 and the related restrictions impacted on their lives and on their care.

Becket House is a privately owned nursing care home registered to provide nursing care with a specialty in dementia care for up to 23 residents. On the day of the visit they were caring for 16 people.

On the basis of our visit, we understand that the pandemic has had a negative impact on Becket House. We found that Becket House had a utilitarian atmosphere, and there were minimal homely touches throughout the communal areas. It was exceptionally quiet. Many staff were not visible during the day, predominantly due to the number of residents who remain in their rooms. The interaction that we did observe between staff and residents was positive and caring.

We made the following recommendations and Becket House have provided detailed responses in the full report:

• To reconfigure the layout of the furniture in the lounge to facilitate improved social interaction of residents.
• That time is taken to produce a range of activities to allow the residents to interact with each other to support their social wellbeing needs.
• Explore ways to provide activities for those residents who choose not to or are unable to use the communal areas of the home to support their social wellbeing needs.
• Consider reviewing the mealtime process to promote social interaction between residents and staff.
• Consider ways to include views and requests from residents in menu planning.

A recommendation that is being made to all care homes and the Dementia Friendly Milton Keynes initiative is to develop a Biography Service. 

This could also be incorporated into reminiscence therapy sessions. Consider inviting the Specialist Memory Service, the Dementia Information Service, and/ or mental health and wellbeing organisations to assess/ reassess residents whose Dementia may have progressed during the pandemic or to support those residents who may be experiencing mild depression. These groups will be able to help staff in developing further tools and activities to further support residents’ mental health and emotional wellbeing.