The Willows Care Home in Blackpool, Lancashire has been awarded an outstanding rating by the Care Quality Commission, following the inspection on 4 December 2018.
The care home looks after residents over 65.
The CQC awarded The Willows outstanding on how caring, responsive and well-led it is, and good for how safe and effective it is.
Without exception CQC inspectorsobserved staff interactions towards people who lived at the home centred upon equal relationships, respect and dignity. When they talked with individuals, they encouraged them to lead conversations and the support provided. A visiting healthcare professional told inspectors that staff focused on people's wellbeing and they did everything they could to give them the best possible life. They said they were extremely impressed with the very high standards of care they witnessed during their visits.
The CQC found The Willows continued to be recognised by the NHS Gold Standards Framework (GSF) for End of Life Care and had received the highest possible award available, Platinum. During the accreditation process the owner, registered manager and staff had received training and quality assurance assessments to check they were meeting the required standards.
Inspectors spoke with two healthcare professionals about end of life care provided by the home. They said end of life care provided at the home was excellent, very organised, planned and coordinated.
CQC inspectors also highlighted that exceptional leadership at The Willows Care Home was underpinned by a variety of communication systems to entrench innovative models into care practices. For example, the service continued to have very long handovers, part of which was about looking at how the service could improve. They noted multiple examples of how communication and highly effective procedures were successful in enriching people's lives, while mitigating risk. The management team underpinned outstanding training with checks of staff skills and implementation of learning in practice. This included supervision, team meetings, extensive handovers and real-time care provision as a basis for learning and guidance sharing.
