'It's a real hustle and bustle home' - Bognor Regis care home speaks out on positive steps since CQC report

Before it is anything else, Saxby Lodge Care Home is just that – a home.

"We’re not Buckingham Palace. We’re not one of these big complex homes that’s got the cinema and the hairdressers and everything else,” says senior staff member Alison Ayres. ‘We’re home. A home away from home.”

Making Saxby Lodge feel like home to residents and staff has been Alison’s mission ever since she stepped up as Saxby Lodge’s nominated Individual in February this year, a short while after a CQC inspectors said the home ‘required improvement’ in a CQC report published in June 2023.

Rebuilding Saxby Lodge into the kind of care home she knew it could be was no small task, especially in a post-pandemic landscape as challenging as ours, but Alison knew she’d need the support of her team, and worked hard to introduce a culture of transparency, accountability and access.

“I have to build stability within the team, and I have to be part of that team,” she said. “They have to know that they’re supported, and then they can grow, because they know the support is there if they need it.”

Her approach has already paid off. The CQC’s most recent report, published in August, had a few suggestions for improvement, but made clear that the quality of care has come on leaps and bounds since 2023 – a claim residents and family members are keen to corroborate.

Reverend Janet Hopewell, whose husband has been a resident since August, told the Bognor Regis Observer that Saxby Lodge has been a source of solace and support in a very trying time: “I was awaiting surgery when he was going to join them, and I don’t know of any other home which would have agreed to hold the bed for six weeks until I had the date of surgery; they didn’t charge me a thing. They just told me to concentrate on recovering.”

"He says the staff are lovely; kind and courteous people who will do anything they can to help. And that’s high praise coming from him – he doesn’t waste his words!”

Alison and her team know what they need to work on in the weeks and months to come, but she says progress is being made, and the best interests of staff, residents and their families are foremost in her mind.

"I think as a whole, the home is in a very different place compared to where it was,” she said. “We're not perfect, we've still got things to do. But you can’t build Rome in a day, and stability for the residents and my staff is the most important thing."

“I think the areas that the CQC picked up on are the areas that we're we're building in. We've done a lot of it already and some of it was already in the pipeline .So moving forward, I think that’s what we do. We keep growing and learning and covering the areas that CQC have picked up on, and we will get there.”