Giving help in intimate situations as discreetly as possible.

Helping residents to furnish and equip their rooms in their own style and to use them as much as they wish for leisure, meals and entertaining.

Offering a range of locations around the home for residents to be alone or with selected others.

Providing locks on residents’ storage space, bedrooms and other rooms in which residents need at times to be interrupted.

Guaranteeing residents’ privacy when using the telephone, opening and reading post and communicating with friends, relatives or advisors.

Ensuring the confidentiality of information the home holds about residents.

Treating each resident as a special and valued individual.

Helping residents to present themselves to others as they would wish through their own clothing, their personal appearance and their behaviour in public.

Offering a range of activities that enables each resident to express themselves as a unique individual.

Tackling the stigma from which our residents may suffer through age, disability or status.

Compensating for the effects of disabilities which residents may experience on their communication, physical functioning, mobility or appearance.

Providing as tactfully as possible human or technical assistance when it is needed.

Maximising the abilities our residents retain for self-care, for independent interaction with others, and for carrying out the tasks of daily living unaided.

Helping residents take reasonable and fully thought-out risks.

Promoting possibilities for residents to establish and retain contacts beyond the home.

Using any form of restraint on residents only in situations of urgency when it is essential for their own safety or the safety or others.

Encouraging residents to have access to and contribute to the records of their own care.

Offering assistance with tasks and in situations that would otherwise be perilous for residents.

Avoiding as far as possible the dangers especially common among older people, notably the risk of falling.

Protecting residents from all forms of abuse and from all possible abusers.

Providing readily accessible channels for dealing with complaints by residents.

Creating an atmosphere in the home which residents experience as open, positive and inclusive.

Ensuring that residents have the opportunity to vote in elections and to brief themselves fully on the democratic options.

Preserving for residents full and equal access to all elements of the National Health Service.

Helping residents to claim all appropriate welfare benefits and social services.

Assisting residents’ access to public services such as libraries, further education, advocacy services and lifelong learning.

Providing meals which enable residents as far as possible to decide for themselves where, when, and with whom they consume food and drink of their choice.

Offering residents a wide range of leisure activities from which to choose.

Enabling residents to manage their own time and not be dictated to by set communal timetables.

Avoiding wherever possible treating residents as a homogeneous group.

Respecting individual, unusual or eccentric behaviour in residents.

Retaining maximum flexibility in the routines of the daily life of the home.

Providing meals which enable residents as far as possible to decide for themselves where, when, and with whom they consume food and drink of their choice.

Informing ourselves as fully as each resident wishes about their individual histories and characteristics.

Providing a range of leisure and recreational activities to suit the tastes and abilities of all residents and to stimulate participation.

Responding appropriately to the personal, intellectual, artistic and spiritual values and practices of every resident.

Respecting our residents’ religious, ethnic and cultural diversity.

Helping our residents to maintain existing contacts and to make new liaisons, friendships, and personal or sexual relationships if they wish.

Attempting always to listen and attend promptly to any resident’s desire to communicate at whatever level.

Provide detailed information on the home by publishing a statement of purpose and a detailed service user guide.

Give each resident a contract or a statement of terms and conditions specifying the details of the relationship.

Ensure that every prospective resident has their needs expertly assessed before a decision on admission is taken.

Demonstrate to every person about to be admitted to the home that we are confident that we can meet their needs as assessed.

Offer trial visits to prospective residents and avoid unplanned admissions except in cases of emergency.

Arrange for the provision of dedicated areas and services for residents admitted for intermediate care.

Produce with each resident, regularly update, and thoroughly implement a service user plan of care, based on an initial and then continuing assessment.

Seek to meet or arrange for appropriate professionals to meet the health care needs of each resident.

Establish and carry out careful procedures for the administration of residents’ medicines.

Take steps to safeguard residents’ privacy and dignity in all aspects of the delivery of health and personal care.

Treat with special care residents who are dying, and sensitively assist them and their relatives at the time of death.

Aim to provide a lifestyle for residents that satisfies their social, cultural, religious and recreational interests and needs.

Help residents to exercise choice and control over their lives.

Provide meals that constitute a wholesome, appealing and balanced diet in pleasing surroundings and at times convenient to residents.

Provide and when necessary operate a simple, clear and accessible complaints procedure.

Take all necessary action to protect residents’ legal rights.

Make all possible efforts to protect residents from every sort of abuse and from the various possible abusers.

Maintain the buildings and grounds in a safe condition.

Make detailed arrangements for the communal areas of the home to be safe and comfortable.

Supply toilet, washing and bathing facilities suitable for the residents for whom we care.

Arrange for specialist equipment to be available to maximise residents’ independence.

Provide individual accommodation that at least meets National Minimum Standards.

See that residents have safe, comfortable bedrooms, with their own possessions around them.

Ensure that the premises are kept clean, hygienic and free from unpleasant odours, with systems in place to control the spread of infection.

Employ staff in sufficient numbers and with the relevant mix of skills to meet residents’ needs.

Provide at all times an appropriate number of staff with appropriate qualifications in health and social care.

Observe recruitment policies and practices which both respect equal opportunities and protect residents’ safety and welfare.

Offer our staff a range of training that is relevant to their induction, foundation experience and further development together including specific specialist training relating to specific individual circumstances.

Always engage as registered manager a person who is qualified, competent and experienced for the task.

Aim for a management approach that creates an open, positive and inclusive atmosphere.

Install and operate effective quality assurance and quality monitoring systems.

Work to accounting and financial procedures which safeguard residents’ interests.

Offer residents appropriate assistance in the management of their personal finances.

Supervise all staff and voluntary workers regularly and carefully.

Keep up-to-date and accurate records on all aspects of the home and its residents.

Ensure that the health, safety and welfare of residents and staff are promoted and protected.