Enter and View: Milton Court

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 Milton Court care home. As well as building a picture of their general experience, we asked about experiences in relation to social isolation and physical activity.

Summary

Milton Court is registered to provide nursing or personal care for up to 148 residents. Milton court is set out with the ground floor as majority residential care, first floor memory/dementia with the second floor for nursing and advanced care. In respect of demographics:

• Seven residents were male, and ten residents were female.
• The average age of residents was 82 years.

What residents told us: 

"[My] personal hygiene has improved since the new manager has arrived."

“I’m always seen in the mornings and staff seem much happier.”

“It would be nice to have someone to talk to more often.”

Additional findings

All interactions that were observed between staff and residents were caring and compassionate, staff taking time to talk with residents when possible, explaining medications, asking permission to enter rooms and begin any type of engagement with a resident. This was, for us, the major difference since our previous visit when we noted that staff were so focussed on ‘tasks’ that there was little opportunity for engagement with the residents.

The new manager has implemented many changes, a few of which are:

• a deep clean of the care home,
• reducing the number of residents to a manageable number for staffing levels, and increased the staffing levels,
• only accepting new residents that are a good ‘fit’ with existing residents.

Staff are confident, smile, chat and this is most evident in the calm and relaxed atmosphere on all floors within the care home. The outcome of these changes for residents is heartening to see, and the uplift in staff morale since our visit six months previously was noticeable. We look forward to seeing this new-feel atmosphere continue.

Recommendations included:

• Review the status of those currently bedbound residents and consider whether they could be helped to be more mobile through better equipment or physical therapy.
• Consider ways of alleviating isolation for those residents that have mobility issues, more one to one time with care staff, more time in group situations, enlist the help of volunteer groups such as befriending services to sit and talk with residents.
• Explore options for more varied activities that could be inclusive of those less mobile residents or look at designing an activity program specifically bedbound residents, particularly those who also have sight and hearing impairments.
• Consider ways to provide a more communal lunchtime layout on the ground floor, as we noted many residents sitting alone. The music was very loud which is not conducive to conversation, especially for people with hearing impairments and for those who are beginning to experience any cognitive decline.