An Ayrshire care home that was previously criticised after a laundry room was found to pose a ‘risk of infection,’ is making improvements to its quality of care.
The Care Inspectorate highlighted the issue during an inspection last year at Shawburn Care Home Service in Prestwick’s Monkton Road.
At the time they said they were ‘not confident’ of the laundry room’s cleanliness and said it ‘would be difficult’ to keep it clean and ‘infection free’ in its current condition.
Another area of concern was the kitchen, which the Care Inspectorate said needed ‘updating.’
Care home bosses were given until January 27 this year to make improvements.
However, following another inspection last month, the Care Inspectorate said: “There had been improvement to the kitchen and laundry aeas.
“The service had put an action plan in place to manage the improvements needed.
“There had been extensive work carried out to improve the laundry area. New equipment had been installed and storage space improved. The area was clean, tidy and organised.”
The scrutiny body did warn, however, that there “continues” to be “work needed” at the home to ensure that other requirements identified during that previous inspection are “fully met and improvements made.”
Among them are medication management, the development of a quality assurance system and improvements to the toilet and bathing facilities.
An extract from the Care Inspectorate report said: “An area for improvement was made at the previous inspection regarding medication management.
“We found that there continued to be work needed to develop protocols to direct staff regarding the administration of medication prescribed to be given ‘as needed’.
“There were some checks being made regarding medication management. However, the range of the checks needed expanded to ensure that medication was being managed safely and effectively.”
The report also states there had been “little progress” with the development of a responsive quality assurance system.
The report reveals: “There were some checks being carried out on aspects of health and safety. The outcomes of these checks were not being used to inform service improvement. This made it difficult to determine if standards were being maintained.”
The report also flagged up that “no progress” had been made to improve the toilet and bathing facilities beyond the planning stage, stating: “The provider assured the Care Inspectorate that the work would be going ahead to improve these facilities. The provider needs to update the improvement plan to detail timescales for completion of the work. We have asked that the provider shares this plan with the Care Inspectorate.”
The Care Home has been given until June 1 to make the additional improvements.
Shawburn is registered to provide a care service for a maximum of nine adults with learning disabilities. The provider is Hansel Alliance.
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