Housing 21 - Anvil Court

Updated 23 January 2024

Date of assessment: 14 May 2024 There was no clear leadership at the service. The regional management team had some oversight of the service, but staff members were left to manage themselves the majority of the time due to a lack of a registered manager for several months. Permanent staff members were dedicated to caring for people, but felt agency staff were not inducted into the service appropriately which led to them often having to redo the care tasks assigned to agency staff to ensure they were done correctly. Where safeguarding concerns had occurred, follow up action was not robust enough to prevent similar incidents from occurring again in the future. Care plans and risks assessments were not updated regularly, despite staff informing the regional management team this was required. Medicine management systems were not robust, with staff not feeling confident people were receiving their medicines in line with their prescriptions. Although the local authority was working closely with the regional managers, action to improve the service was not being implemented. Staff knew how to whistle blow but did not feel their concerns would be listened to due to a lack of trust from staff to the regional managers.

Updated 23 January 2024

People and their relatives echoed how the lack of a stable leadership team had caused a decline in the quality of the care being delivered. A relative told us, “My historic experience is that it was safe and well managed by previous manager. I believe it’s become less safe recently as there’s no manager, no manager on site. They heavily rely on agency staff and not regular staff. The regular staff are fantastic but can’t do it single handled.” People gave us examples such as where their care call had been missed or was extremely late, or when their medication had run out and a new prescription had not been ordered in time. People said the quality of outings and activities had declined with the lack of a clear management team at the service.