Enter and View: Headingley Park Care Home

Recommendations of visit 

• Based on our visit we would recommend the following:
• That all alarm pull cords in residents’ toilets and bathrooms should be free hanging and extend to just above floor length. 12
• In both wings, replace all residents’ white toilet seats and riser seats with coloured ones that contrast with the white frames and toilets. These would be dementia friendly.
• Either replace white grab rails and bars in toilets and bathrooms with coloured ones to make them more visible and dementia friendly or paint the walls in a contrasting colour.
• To increase visibility, all corridor handrails in both wings should be painted in clearly contrasting colours.
• Lower the fantastic dementia friendly/braille signs in Buttercup to make them more visible to residents and purchase the same or similar dementia friendly signs for Poppy.
• Lock the visitors’ toilet door as it has no alarm cord, isn’t dementia friendly and residents could easily access it.
• Give regular staff training reminders for example to keep the sluice door locked.  
• Consider a separate alarm system for each wing as during a 10 minute period on Buttercup, the alarm was ringing almost constantly with requests from residents on Poppy. Staff told us that this was distracting. The unnecessary noise could also be an irritant to vulnerable residents.
• Ensure that all taps are clearly recognisable as ‘hot’ or ‘cold’.