Archived: The Lawns Residential Care

We looked through a total of three files for members of staff appointed since the start of the year.

Each one was well organised and they were easy for us to find documents within them. The service had applied for a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check for each person.

Two out of the three people had not commenced work at The Lawns until the CRB had been done. One person had started prior to the CRB check. However, the home had received a PoVA first (Protection of Vulnerable Adults) check. The references on file were not from the named people on the application form. A verbal explanation about who the referees were was given but this background information had not been recorded at the time.

We found that that another person who worked at the home had returned there after a period of time working elsewhere having resigned from The Lawns. We saw no new documentation had been completed such as an application form, reference requests and a new CRB.

Although we did not have lengthy discussions with people living at the home, they did not tell us of any concerns or worries they had regarding the care they receive. People's demeanour indicated that they were happy with the care provided. There was a relaxed atmosphere within the home especially as people in the lounge were preparing to watch a musical on a DVD. We noted that staff treated people with kindness and that people appeared to be clean and appropriately dressed. During our visit we had no concerns regarding people having their privacy, and dignity respected.

We have previously raised concern about some aspects of medication management at The Lawns. During this visit we discussed with the manager and senior staff on duty our concerns about the record keeping regarding creams and our discovery that eye drops were not administered to one person for two days.

People told us that the home is clean and tidy. We found an improvement from our last visit in infection control procedures.

Staff had received training in areas highlighted as part of our last visit including moving and handling and fire awareness.

Comments from people included 'very good they look after me well', 'clean my room' and 'staff wonderful'. One relative described the home as 'exceptional.'