Enter and view - General - Abbey Care Complex - The Loxford Practice

The Loxford Practice

Introduction

In May 2016, The Practice Loxford was rated ‘inadequate’ when inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC1 ). In August 2016, new providers AT Medics were commissioned through a competitive tendering process. Healthwatch Redbridge met with AT Medics senior management to discuss patient experience at the practice and offered to support them as they worked to reestablish patient confidence.

Recommendations

• The practice should consider enlarging the numbers on the doors on the consulting rooms.
• Consideration should also be given to changing the size, colour and font for all signs.
• The practice should ensure that the signs for the hearing loops are not obstructed and that they are larger.
• All staff should be trained in the correct way to use the hearing loop.
• The noticeboards should be clearly labelled to ensure patients are aware of the notices that are relevant to them.
• The practice should ensure that the complaints procedure is accessible to all patients and in different formats.

Abbey Care Complex 

An unannounced visit to Abbey Care Complex was conducted to gather the experiences of residents who use the home.
Through our visits, we hoped to:

• Observe and gather resident’s experiences of the care home
• Ascertain whether the home is meeting their care needs
• Find out whether the facilities and resources support residents needs

We were also interested to understand if any current residents had recently relocated from Meadow Court Nursing Home in Goodmayes. Meadow Court Nursing Home was located approximately one mile from Abbey Care Complex and was closed in February 2018.

Recommendations

1. HWR suggests the home review its Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards6 policy. We felt that residents, where they had capacity, should be able to use the lifts independently. A ‘blanket ban’ should not be in place.

2. The complaints procedure should be provided on the noticeboard so that residents and their relatives are aware of the process for reporting a complaint. If possible, this procedure should be available in an easy to read, simplified format.

3. We are pleased that all staff members have a uniform and name badge but it would be good practice for the name badge to be printed in a larger font size making it easier for residents to read them.