We visited Ravenswood Residential Care Home as part of our schedule of planned visits and also because we had been informed of concerns about the care people received.Before our visit we contacted other people who may have had an interest in the service such as fire safety officers, environmental health, and local involvement networks (LINks). LINks are groups of individual members of the public and local voluntary and community groups who work together to improve health and social care services. To do this they gather the views of local people. It was through discussions with other agencies and from information we hold about the service we became aware of concerns.
Since our last visit to this service the provider has registered additional beds in a new extension to the home, this means that the service could now accommodate up to 53 people.
There were 42 people living at the home when we visited on 03 May 2012. The visit was unannounced which meant the provider and the staff did not know we were visiting. For part of our visit we were accompanied by an expert by experience. An expert by experience is some one who uses services, or has had experience of services. They are people of all ages, with different experiences and from diverse cultural backgrounds. Our expert by experience took some notes and wrote a report about what they found. They observed that interaction between staff and people using the service was seen to be caring and compassionate and that people had said they felt that they were treated with dignity and respect.
During the visit we spoke with people living at the home, family and friends who were
visiting and staff members. One person living at the home told us, "Staff are very nice,
polite and very helpful".
We looked at the plans of care for six people living at the home and found that there were some gaps in the information we looked at, and in three examples care plans or risk assessments had not been developed potentially putting people at risk of harm.
There was little evidence that six people had been involved in the development of care plans or in decisions about their treatment.
We viewed staff files during our visit and found that the organisation had a process for
recruitment and training. The provider told us all staff employed by Ravenswood Residential Care Home were subjected to appropriate checks prior to commencing their role.
We saw that the systems to monitor and audit the quality of the service and delivery of care were not well established, therefore the provider was not able to demonstrate that there was a plan to continually improve the standard of service provided.
The home was clean and tidy, dedicated domestic staff were employed and the home was generally clean and tidy, but systems for assessing and monitoring the potential risk and the prevention, detection, and control of infection were not in place. Potentially putting people at risk.