Castle Lodge Independent Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

The service promoted people’s independence, provided meaningful activities and access to community activities. Staff supported people to maintain relationships and other things that mattered to them. People were supported to understand their rights and enabled to have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We did not look at Kindness, compassion and dignity during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Treating people as individuals during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

The feedback we gained from 3 carers and 3 patients indicated that people had access to a range of activities and monthly community meetings. People were supported to maintain relationships. Staff encouraged and developed ways for people to access things that were important to them, for example, cultural and spiritual support. Patients and carers had an awareness of the complaints process. Carer's told us they could meet with the psychiatrist and ask questions about medication and one carer shared how their relative had lost a lot of weight and they were invited to the service to look at food charts and discuss their concerns during a multi-disciplinary meeting. The service had developed a good relationship with and ensured people had access to advocacy services to make sure their voices were heard.

During our assessment we gained feedback from 6 staff and the hospital director and deputy hospital director. All staff had a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act, they supported people to communicate and make informed decisions about their care. They undertook a range of learning and development opportunities to develop ways to improve care delivery. The service linked in with external teams to support patients to maintain independence and control, for example, speech and language therapists, dysphagia, and tissue viability nurses. The service worked with an organisation to provide assistive technology to support patients with their speech and language to help them verbalise their needs, as much as possible. The service were looking at ways to continually improve documentation within the service and accessibility to communication methods.

SOFI observations showed the staff promoted people’s independence and enabled choice and control over their own care, treatment and activities. We observed staff supporting patients to keep in touch with family and friends. We also observed a facilitated monthly carers meeting which was well attended and open to carers past and present. We observed the service had a range of easy read leaflets in place, such as information regarding the Mental Health Act, advanced decisions and treatment and care planning. However, we did observe that there could be some further improvement in easy read documentation, such as the community meeting minutes which included pictures but were lengthy.

The provider had systems in place to check that people's needs were met in line with current guidance and best practice, including good governance systems and leadership. Managers undertook regular audits, reviews and meetings to ensure oversight over people's care and treatment. The service had a multi-disciplinary team with access to allied health professionals such as occupational therapy, psychology and art therapy. We looked at 5 care and treatment records which had detailed positive behaviour support plans in place to maximise independence, choice and control. Staff were working on communication passports. If patients were admitted to hospital, for example, a member of staff would accompany the patient to facilitate communication between the external service and the patient. In the meantime, all patients had a wellbeing profile in place.

We did not look at Responding to people’s immediate needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Workforce wellbeing and enablement during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.