Archived: Dawnings

We visited we met the four people who lived at the home. They were not able to tell us in detail about their experience of living at the home due to their special needs. We saw that people were relaxed with staff. Two people told us they liked living at the home and said staff gave them the help they needed.

We found that people's needs had been assessed and their care was planned and then delivered in line with this plan. We saw that the staff supported people in a calm way and had a good understanding of how they communicated. Suitable systems were in place to support people with their daily medicines and storage facilities had been improved.

We found that the service was staffed with a team who worked regularly at the home. There were some limitations to when people could access the community but additional funding had been requested. The use of agency staff had been reduced and agency workers now always worked with two permanent staff. The acting manager had effective systems in place to manage the service. Health and safety hazards were kept under review and routine safety checks had been carried out. There was a current action plan to further improve the service and regular quality assurance audits were carried out.

There was limited information to explain people's care to them in a way they would be able to understand and use. The care records contained so much information and were so complicated that it was difficult to find important information readily. Agency staff were not always familiar with the arrangements for people's care and safety.

The arrangements for the safe management of medicines were inadequate. There was no effective stock control system, storage arrangements were inadequate and information for staff was not reliable.

Staffing arrangements at the home were reliant on the use of agency staff. This had been ongoing for several months and had had a clear impact on the daily lives of people living at the home.

There has not been a full time manager at Dawnings for over a year. The provider's arrangements for assessing and monitoring the quality of the service had not identified the problems at the home at an early stage. A new service manager had been assigned to work at the service for a period of three months.