Report says staff are fed up
A desperate shortage of nurses has left staff at a Paisley care home “fed up and frustrated”, a care inspection report has found.
Care Inspectorate officers made a surprise visit to Braemount Nursing Home, in Donaldswood Road, to talk to elderly residents, their families at workers.
The resulting report highlighted a dire need to recruit more staff to fill both nursing and management posts at the home.
While quality of ‘care and support’ and ‘environment’ were both marked adequate, ‘staffing’ and ‘ management and leadership’ were found to be weak.
And the lack of trained staff had left nurses exhausted and agency workers being drafted in which had led to some mistakes, including medicine and continence management for residents.
A Care Inspectorate spokesman said: “We found staff to be caring, kind and compassionate.
“They knew the residents well and we saw positive interaction between staff and residents.
“Staff told us, despite the significant pressure they were under due to staffing issues, that they ‘cared’ about the residents and ‘they were like family.’
“We spoke with as many staff members as we could across all departments.
“Everyone expressed concerns about the staffing situation and how it was impacting on them but more importantly, the residents.
“Staff told us that they were ‘fed up’ and ‘done in’ and ‘frustrated’.
“We discussed this at length with staff and the main reason for these concerns was the lack of consistent nursing staff.
“It is acknowledged that across the care home estate there is a shortage of nurses and care homes are having to rely heavily on agency staff.
“While this ensured there were staff on duty, this did not lend itself to consistent practice or continuity of care for residents.
“During the inspection we became aware that there were several staff vacancies within the home, mainly for nurses, and a constant recruitment drive was not able to fill the vacancies.”
The inspectors discovered that on every shift there would be at least one agency staff member with more on night shift.
There was also only one permanent unit manager out of the three units and one unit did not have any permanent nurses until the week of the inspection when a new nurse joined the team.
The report added: “Care staff were ‘ tired’ and ‘stretched’ trying to ensure that safe, consistent care was delivered in difficult circumstances.
“We saw several areas where the lack of continuity of staff had led to problems and errors, such as medication ma na g e m e nt and continence management.
“There was a new manager who had been in post for three months, she was the fourth manager in two years. The manager had lots of ideas on how to improve and develop the service, but the current staffing situation made this very difficult.” A spokesman for the home said: “When the Care Inspectorate inspected the home in March, they identified a few areas where we need to improve.
“We are committed to ensuring we provide the very best care for our residents and acted immediately.
“We have recruited a new home manager and a number of new nurses and senior carers, who have all taken part in dementia training. We are working hard to improve the home further.”