Melrose Nursing Home Blog

Nursing Homes in Worthing - is it possible with the new system to tell a 3 star excellent home from a 1 star adequate one?

At Melrose we have just had our first inspection under the new Health and Social Care Act. It applies to all Care Homes, Nursing Homes included and, although the format of the inspection, - or Compliance Review, as they are now called- is quite similar to previously, it is just that - a review to ensure compliance with the new Essential Standards of Quality and Safety.

In the past, the Care Quality Commission awarded stars as quality measures, for the Care Homes they inspected - from 0 to 3 stars ( 0 being poor , 1- adequate 2- good and up to 3 which was excellent). This gave a recognisable way for the public looking for a Care Home or a Nursing Home to get a picture of the quality they would find.
Now no such measure exists, it is simply compliant or non compliant. It is easy to spot on the CQC website if there are major concerns with compliance (from the tick box under the Care Home’s name) and the report is still accessible on the website, but no quality scores exist any longer to distinguish between adequate, good or excellent Care Homes or Nursing Homes.

When the regime changed in October 2010, Melrose Care Home in Worthing was the only Nursing home in Worthing to have the full 3 stars. The demise of the star rating system is, therefore, a sadness to us, especially as the whole team works hard at Melrose to make sure we are constantly improving the lives of our residents. We keep our residents fully involved in the development of their service, consulting them and asking their opinions along the way - after all, it is their home.

We enjoy reviews or inspections as Melrose as our culture is always one of feeback and continuous improvement!

These were some of the extracts from our final report which will be on the website quite soon:-

The people who live in Melrose told us that they were very happy living in the home. They told us that the staff “go out of their way to make sure we are happy”. We spoke with people both individually and in groups and they told us that “the staff could not be kinder” and they were full of admiration at their patience and understanding. One said “you couldn’t ask for a better home.” One person told us that in particular the night staff were “superb.”
We saw a member of staff offering a person a cardigan or extra blanket in the day room in a friendly and encouraging manner. When they were wrapped in the blanket the person smiled at the staff member and said “a warm blanket that’s what I call love.”