Inspection on 04/10/06 for Somerforde Ltd

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What the care home does well

The service provided a good standard of care, with service uses personal and health needs being met sensitively by a well- established trained and supported staff team. The service users enjoyed a flexible lifestyle, in which the staff team support Service users to maintain contact with friends and family and pursue activities and interests in the home and local community. The service users described the home as "wonderful" " a great place to live" and the staff as "kind, helpful and fun". The owners and staff have a commitment to constantly improving the environment and services for services users for example the recent recarpeting and redecoration of large areas of the home and extending, reviewing and developing policies and procedures to assist staff in meeting service users needs.

What has improved since the last inspection?

The owners had continued with the refurbishment and redecoration of some areas of the home, improving the appearance of communal, corridor and entrance hall of the home. The owners, the manager and staff team had continue to improve and extend policies and procedures in a number of areas including staff supervision, Initial and ongoing assessment records of Service users needs individualised training records for staff and changing care plan systems. This will be of long term benefit for staff and residents as it will improve communication, improve staff and residents relationships, make clear residents needs so that staff can meet those needs. A priority for the owners of the home at the previous inspection had been, ensuring that all staff had completed current criminal records and protection of vulnerable adults checks, as some staff had continued to fail to provide the information necessary for the home to complete checks. This had been addressed so that service users are no longer at risk from members of staff who may not be suitable to work with vulnerable people.

What the care home could do better:

Areas of improvement are in continuing to extend review and expand on the policies, procedures and practices that the manager and owners had identified This included, reviewing the service users files to make sure all records are fully completed, dated and signed, extending Risk assessments for the premises to include information on the restriction of windows, the use of keys for service users personal rooms and how the home safeguards against Legionella and consistently completing staff training records. Extending the quality assurance system, so that the details include a continuous selfmonitoring internal audit that is objective, reviewed and involves service users is also an area of work that the owners are aware needs to be improved. These changes will continue to improve communication, build on the teams strengths and promote good practices that maintain the health, safety and welfare of service users and staff.