Archived: Bowmead EPH

When we inspected in August 2013 we found that information regarding decisions made on behalf of people were not available. We saw that risk assessments to help staff keep people safe had not been completed. This put people at risk of unsafe care.

We found that many staff members had not received training to enable them to meet the needs of the people they supported. We found that some policies and procedures to guide staff to keep people safe were not easily accessible.

We found during this inspection that the home had taken action with regards to ensuring all staff had received training suitable to enable them to care for people effectively. We saw that policies and procedures were accessible to staff and recent audits had been undertaken to monitor the quality of the service. We saw that information had been recorded to help staff support people to make decisions in their daily life.

We saw that care plans had been updated, however we found there were gaps in documentation and some people did not have risk assessments. This meant risks to people's safety and welfare had not been identified. This put them at risk of unsafe care.

People we spoke with told us 'it couldn't be any better', its beautiful here' and 'we get good attention'

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People we spoke with told us that staff explained things to them and asked them before they offered personal care. However in two care files for people with cognitive impairment, we found that guidance for staff did not show, how to support these people to make choices.

People told us that 'the staff were lovely' and 'there were no bossy ones'. We found that staff had an understanding of what constituted abuse and who to report to if they saw something they were unhappy about.

People told us that they had completed a survey about how the home was run and they were confident to tell the staff if they were not happy about anything.

We found that some policies and procedures were not easily accessible to staff and there was no overall evidence about how the quality of the home was maintained. This meant that the people who use the service may be put at risk of unsafe care or treatment.

We spoke with six people using the service on the day of our visit. We received a number of positive comments about living at Bowmead. For example, one person told us "they are very good to you here", and another person told us that "staff treat you very well, I couldn't wish for more". This person told us that they had recently moved to another home but hadn't liked it there and was glad to have been able to move back to Bowmead.