Staff at Saffron House are wonderful and work hard under pressure
I WAS somewhat disappointed with the remarks made by the CQC about Saffron House. Why was no mention made of the owners of this, and many other homes, not mentioned in the report.
They are Minster Care Home Group with their head office being in Harrow, Middlesex.
Yes, staff are under pressure and there are not enough of them provided by Minster. However, they do their very best under difficult circumstances.
We arranged for my very good friend of 45 years to go there after he could no longer care for himself in his warden controlled flat after collapsing in November last year. It was thought he had had a minor heart attack. After many tests and stays in the Royal, Glenfield and Melton Mowbray, social services arranged for him to go to Aylesham Court for a six-week assessment.
We requested he be brought to Saffron House so we could visit him every day. The home and staff were fantastic. He had his own en-suite room and we were allowed to take anything we wanted of his own little treasures to make the room home from home for him.
We knew something was radically wrong with him but it took Dr Jackson of Barwell Surgery and a specialist at Nuneaton Hospital to get to the bottom of it. He had lung cancer which then moved into his spine. His weight loss in a short space of time was awful to see.
Staff gave him round the clock care along with Macmillan nurses. Even members of the laundry room went in to see him and talk to him. He was regularly turned and never had a single bed sore. He was in awful pain so was then given morphine etc. Apparently the hearing is the last thing to go so music was played to him as well as 15 minute visits by staff. All of these were logged quite plainly for us to see.
I must give a special mention to Jane, the little girl who travelled everywhere with him on hospital visits, sometimes lasting hours, she also read to him.
I have no problem stating we think Saffron House and the staff are wonderful.
Minster Care are the problem. The buck stops here. Stephanie McQuire, by email