17 May 2012
During a routine inspection
17 May 2012. We looked at essential standards covering consent, care and welfare, safeguarding people from abuse, recruiting staff and assessing and monitoring the quality of the service.
We looked at the records of two people in detail; and where possible we spoke to the individual and or their carer. We observed other people being attended to whilst we were visiting. We spoke with five carers about their relations experiences of respite at Berry House. We asked three professionals about people's experiences of care and support at Berry house. However, we did not receive any comments back.
People we spoke to said that they 'like it' at Berry House. For example, one person said 'I get to meet my friends here'. We saw that people are treated as individuals in a respectful way. People were able to follow their usual routines, such as attending a day centre or doing voluntary work that they normally would when at home.
All five carers we spoke with said that Berry House was a well run respite service, which they value. Their comments were positive, for example the 'care is excellent', 'he's very safe and always clean', 'the staff are so kind and caring' and 'XXX likes going there and he feels safe'. An area that carers suggested might be improved was with regard to people's well being at weekends, with comments like 'it would be nice if there were more staff on duty at weekends so they can go out to the beach, bowling or the theatre for example'. However, carers told us that their main concern was to do with changes social services were making to funding and support arrangements for respite care and they feared that this would affect the future viability of the service at Berry House.
There are three areas where we have highlighted improvements that the provider should consider. Firstly, these relate to inclusion of people through the use of reasonable adjustments so that they have greater ownership in planning their respite stay. Secondly, tighter controls over financial records. And finally, the implementation of the risk assessment for the service in relation to the frequency of fire drills.