Oakwood Bungalows

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Aspect of record keeping required improvements to ensure people received support consistently. Leaders were working together to make improvements to the service and to monitor the quality of the service. Relatives and staff spoke positively about the current leadership team. Leaders and staff worked in partnership with external organizations to support people.

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff strived to deliver the kind of support they would want to receive themselves. Staff were aware of the service’s values and aimed values were to foster people confidence and independence. Leaders aspired to improve and valued honesty and transparency, with people, their representatives, staff and partner agencies. Staff were aware of the importance of equality, diversity and human right and felt they were doing all in their power to protect people from being discriminated against.

The provider had processes in place to support the shared direction and culture of the service. This included communicating updates through staff meetings. As well as the new management team working with the staff team and getting to know the people using the service. A staff member said, “I feel the new manager is quite responsive, updating staff quickly on any changes and updates are also sent via email.”

Leaders had experience in delivering the organisational vision and managing risks. They were knowledgeable about issues and priorities for the quality of services and could access appropriate support and development in their role. Staff had trust and confidence in the new management team. A staff member said, “I have confidence in them, I have never had better managers”.

Leaders completed a service improvement plan (SIP) to help drive improvements at the service. One of the leaders said, “We have a SIP in place to help us triage. We know things are not perfect yet and there is space for improvement, but we have a plan in place to address it”. Leaders talked about how they were working together to improve the service and felt supported by the provider. Improvement plans included decorating the communal areas in the home and records management. Leaders were open and enthusiastic about improving the service.

Leaders encouraged staff to speak up when they had concerns or saw something was not right. Staff told us they would be confident to raise concerns and felt the managers would manage them appropriately. Leaders were aware under the previous management, concerns were not always recorded, reported and managed appropriately. They were ensuring that this did not happen again and had implemented new processes to address this risk. Leaders gave examples of how people received a sincere and prompt apology, and actions were taken to prevent the same happening again. For example, when a person sustained an injury, measures were put into place to prevent this from reoccurring.

The new management team promoted an open-door approach. So that people using the service, staff and relatives were able to raise queries or issues with the management team.

Leaders and staff felt they had equality of opportunity within their workplace and employment. Leaders supported staff by making reasonable adjustments, for example in line with their cultural and religious needs.

Staff were given opportunities to develop through regular supervision, staff meetings and training. Management completed daily walk rounds which included reviewing staffing levels, checks of the premises and carrying out staff observations. The manager explained that they had recently moved offices, to have more oversight and being more accessible to people living at the service, staff and any visitors.

Leaders told us they completed a range of audits to check the quality and safety at the service. Staff and leader’s roles were clearly defined and there was a clear structure in place. The leadership team and care staff worked together to provide good care for people. Leaders had an oversight of staff performance. A leader said, “Managers are always in and out and spend a lot of time in the communal area observing staff interactions with people.”

Leaders confirmed they had identified some areas for improvement and put together a service improvement plan. This was being used to improve the quality and safety of the service. At the time of this assessment improvements in some areas were still being embedded. Leaders recognised that in the past information was not consistently submitted to external organisations as required. They were in the process of making changes to their systems to reduce the risk of this reoccurring. A range of audits and checks were used to help monitor the service and improve quality when shortfalls were identified. There were checks in place to monitor the service and to drive improvements. However, these were not always effective to ensure leaders had full oversight of the service. During the assessment we identified the provider did not have the correct service user age band for people living at the service. We discussed this with leaders and an application was submitted immediately to address this. Records were not always complete to ensure staff supported people consistently around best interest decisions. Whilst leaders were aware of this, actions to address this had been put into place which they were working towards. Relatives were positive regarding the new management team and the changes they were making at the service. However, a few relatives said they were not fully aware why Oakwood Bungalows was no longer operating as a nursing home. And whether there maybe any implications on the running of the home due to this. We discussed this with leaders who confirmed plans to send out a follow up letter to all relatives about the change in registration providing them with assurance about how the service will continue to be delivered.

People told us they were happy living at Oakwood Bungalows.

Leaders worked with a range of external community health and social care agencies to support people. For example, when the local authority identified risks at the service, leaders engaged in ongoing support from them to make improvements. Leaders told us how they worked with the mental health outreach team, following their advice and guidance to achieve best outcomes for people.

Partners had seen improvements at the service. External professionals told us things were improving with the service and communication had improved. An external professional told us, “Oakwood Bungalows is now managed much better there has been a huge change. It used to be poor due to lack of communication and transparency. There is more open dialogue and less defensive attitude.”

Leaders worked in partnership with external health and social care professionals to provide good outcomes for people they supported. Fortnightly ward rounds were completed by the ‘ageing well’ team, who promoted a multi-disciplinary approach in providing integrated tailored support for people.

We did not look at Learning, improvement and innovation during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Well-led.