Enter & View Report: Meadows House care home
The purpose of our visit
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 allows local Healthwatch authorised representatives to observe service delivery at providers across a range of health and social care services such as hospitals, GPs, and care homes.
Enter and View visits can happen if people tell us there is a problem with a service. They can also occur when services have a good reputation, so we can learn about and share examples of good practice from the perspective of people who experience the service first hand.
Through the programme we help providers to identify what is working well with services and where they could be improved.
How does it work?
Our trained staff and volunteers visit a Greenwich health and social care service. We then spend time at the location, talking both to people receiving care and those providing it.
After our visit, we analyse all the feedback that we have collected and write a report which is published on our website. We share our reports with the organisations involved, the local commissioner, the CQC, and with Healthwatch England.
To protect the safety of service users and staff, we conduct risk assessments and DBS check all our staff and volunteers.
Executive summary and recommendations
Meadows House is a purpose-built modern care home divided into 5 units on three floors. It has a pleasant exterior with peaceful well-furnished garden areas. The home offers ample parking and is close to local amenities and public transport networks with a nearby bus stop and Kidbrooke Station 7 minutes away.
We found Meadows House to be clean, warm, and homely, with a friendly atmosphere creating a sense of community. Bedrooms are thoughtfully decorated, and staff personalise care to focus on the needs of each resident.
Relatives told us the new care home manager has made significant improvements, both to the home and to residents’ care and activities. Staff prioritise understanding what residents enjoy doing and activities are organised to reflect preferences. Unlike other homes we’ve visited, we were pleased to see most residents choosing to spend their time in communal areas, interacting with staff and other residents, participating in activities and the daily life of the home.
Recommendations
1. Recommendation: Display photographs and names of key staff members in the reception area.
2. Recommendation: To set up regular dental care visits for residents.
