
Latest News
Visit to The House of Lords
Following his Highly Commended achievement in The Support Worker Award category at the National Learning Disabilities & Autism Awards 2025, Pickworth House’s Ricky Roberts was honoured with an invitation to afternoon tea with Lord Palmer at the House of Lords.
Reflecting on the experience, Ricky said: “It was a real honour to be invited to afternoon tea with Lord Palmer. Spending time at the House of Lords, overlooking the River Thames, made it an especially memorable afternoon. Meeting people from across the care profession and sharing our experiences and perspectives was both interesting and incredibly valuable.”
Ricky also captured the day through lots of photographs, kindly sharing his experience so others could enjoy and celebrate the occasion too.
We would like to extend a huge thank you to Ricky for his ongoing dedication, professionalism, and commitment to providing outstanding support. His recognition on a national stage is thoroughly deserved and reflects the positive impact he makes every day. We are incredibly proud of his achievements and the way he represents Pickworths Residential Living!
Skirbeck Lodge CQC Report Published
When Pickworths was first developed we pledged to make it our mission to be bold and candid about what we did well and what we didn’t. We wanted our external colleagues and regulators to be able to arrive at our homes and undertake deep drives into what we are providing to make an accurate determination of our quality based upon truth and realtime authentic evidence.
In February Skirbeck Lodge was visited by three inspectors from the CQC who over two days completed a full and comprehensive inspection under the new single assessment framework. This inspection was a first for Skirbeck Lodge and for the company, but was viewed by the team as a platform to showcase all of the fantastic opportunities that our team have created and the difference we have made.
We are proud that we scored a four, demonstrating areas of outstanding practice, in seven of the quality statements; with a minimum of a three (good practice) scored elsewhere.
Employee Engagement Survey Results
At Pickworths we like to understand what we do well and are open to ways in which we can improve. Our Employee Engagement Survey results are now in, which we are proud to share!
Our survey has five Likert scale sections: Engagement, Leadership, Enablement, Alignment and Development. This is followed by two free text sections where people that work at Pickworths are able to share what they think we can do well and areas where we can improve.
A high benchmark was set for each of the statements and we are delighted that 95% of the statements reached the benchmark.
The area of greatest improvement was within the leadership section, with all three of the statements that were included in the 2022 survey showing significant improvement.
The survey had an overall positive response of 91.5%, with 51.5% strongly agreeing with the statements. 2.6% of the results had a negative response, of this 0.3% strongly disagreed with the statements. The remaining 5.9% had neutral responses.
Now that the results have been shared with the team we will be holding a focus group to look at the results, look for areas of improvement and create an action plan to work towards achieving our aims.
Detailed survey results can be downloaded using the button above this article.
Partnership with Yanna Lawson
We met with Yanna to discuss the service and gave her a tour of the building. We discussed our organisational values PROUD, and what they mean to us. We discussed our journey to date and our ambitions for the future.
Yanna shared with us her passion for art, and how her work helps maintain her own emotional wellbeing. Yanna was very open about her disability and lived experience with managing her own mental health, so being involved in the creation of Pickworths was a no brainer. A perfect partnership.
Below you can see the process of making our vision into a beautiful. In the future we are hoping that Yanna will run workshops for the people who live and work at the service which will be a fabulous experience for all involved.
We couldn’t be happier with the result; it is exactly how we imagined it. If you are curious about Yanna’s artistic talent (she is phenomenal) check out her Facebook and Instagram pages on the links below…

