Concern raised in Forse House report
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THE lack of staff at a local home which specialises in caring for people with special needs has resulted in bullying and sexually inappropriate behaviour between residents.
The Care Inspectorate has raised concerns about staffing at Forse House in Latheron, stating that the level of supervision of residents at the home needs to be improved to stop such incidents happening in the future.
The report carried out in March was done as a high intensity inspection after standards at the home fell – between September 2010 and September 2011 the quality of care and environment was downgraded from “good” to “weak”.
Despite improvements being made over the past six months and the status being upgraded to “adequate”, inspectors are still concerned about the level of staffing, saying that more individual support is needed for the 24 residents.
In the report they state that management confirmed there had been a slippage in staff supervision arrangements and that routine supervision sessions had not been achieved.
The report also says that a number of incidents affecting residents had not been witnessed by members of staff.
Concerns about the need for a locked lounge to protect vulnerable service users were raised, with inspectors noting that there were periods of the day when the room was left unattended.
The report concludes that staffing levels at Forse House need to improve and appropriate action be taken to ensure more individual attention for residents.
Forse House owner Derek MacDonald said that the amount of staff that work at the residential home is set by the level of funding that they receive from the local authority.
“The previous Care Commission wanted to bring that point across to the local authority to receive more funding as we felt as providers we should have more staff to help with the needs of our service users,” he said.
“The complex needs of our users, including their behaviour, does require extra staffing but there were no meetings with Highland Council to address these issues.
“There are currently 33 members of staff, but we need at least four more, with one extra member of staff per shift.
“It is not due to us having a shortfall in care staff, but to meet the changing physical needs of our clients as they get older to carry out duties such as washing, changing and feeding.”
The home has managed to make improvements in the past six months by reviewing the level of incidents and seeing how they can be reduced in the future.
It has also made progress on the assessment of service users’ care and support needs as well as introducing a staff training programme to improve employee skills.
Mr MacDonald maintained the changeover from the Care Commission to the Care Inspectorate in April last year saw differences in the evaluation procedure which resulted in the drop in the Forse House grading.
He claimed: “They were more concerned with recordings rather than looking at the amount of work staff were doing physically with clients.
“There was one criticism that we were recording incidents too accurately and on the other side they said that we didn’t have enough records to show what the staff were doing.
“Part of the reason why we are up to ‘adequate’ level is that the report recognises the work that we are doing at Forse House.”
He added: “Most of the inspectors’ experience comes from care for the elderly and not people with special needs.
“We are confident that now the inspectors understand where we are coming from we can get our ‘good’ status back and go even further.”
Forse House was the first residential nursing home for people with learning disabilities and learning difficulties in Scotland when it opened in October 1986.
Clients are referred to the home through families, GPs and social services.
