20 December 2013
During a routine inspection
People who used the service, so far as reasonably practicable expressed their views and were involved in making decisions about their care and people's needs were assessed.
We found that staff were described as caring and that they interacted positively with people who used the service.
We found that the registered manager had a range of risk assessments in place including but not limited to, slips, trips and falls, an up to date fire risk assessment, environmental risk assessments and assessments covering the control of substances hazardous to health. (COSHH).
We found that staff received an induction, formal training and underwent a planned programme of shadowing experienced staff and service user familiarisation before they were expected to work on their own. This meant that people who used the service could be confident that they would be supported by staff who understood their needs that they were familiar with and who had been appropriately trained and inducted to deliver care to them.
The services policies and procedures gave clear instructions to staff about the protection of vulnerable adults (safeguarding) and staff acted on them.
We found that the registered manager used a range of methods to collect feedback and complaints from the people who used the service, their representative or relatives and staff. We saw and were told that the forms that were used to collect feedback were overly complicated and did not follow a user friendly format and that the main source of feedback and complaints was made 'informally'.