Enter and View: Park House

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 Park House 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

Park House care home is registered to provide personal and nursing care for up to 35 residents. The home caters for general residential, dementia and other healthcare needs and manage the nursing care provision for those residents who require it. The home advise that they are well supported by district nurses and first response nursing teams who provide the nursing element.

In respect of demographics: all residents that took part were female, ages ranged from 83 to 102 giving an average age of 94 years.

Our findings

Staff were observed to be kind and caring with residents, they showed compassion and interest in residents and engaged with genuine passion. Residents were happy and welcomed requests from staff around their care. We noted that residents displaying challenging behaviour accepted staff interventions and acknowledged staff when they were engaged with.

What residents told us: 

"[Staff] are caring and lovely people.’"

‘Staff work really hard; they are just like family to me."

‘Staff are excellent"

"I’m happy here, they do a good job, it’s the next best thing to being at home."

Additional findings

"Residents were queuing to have their hair done on the day we visited. Wednesday is the regular hairdresser day and is very popular, with the same hairdresser coming to the home since it opened. She knows all the residents well and the salon was as big a hive of activity as any local salon would be... During the afternoon there was a quiz in the lounge in the original part of the home with staff and residents having a good challenge. Another staff member was also sitting painting nails for some of the ladies."

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.