Serious criticism from IVO about care homes

'The work carried out does not meet the demands for high quality.' That is what IVO, inspection for care quality, states after having visited a care home at the end of 2022.

It concerns a number of shortcomings which all point in the same direction, that a common way of working and similar methods are lacking in the facility.

Staff at the home who are supposed to have been hand-picked for having the right competence tell IVO themselves that they do not know enough about the different diagnoses the residents have, and would like to learn more. For example they have expressed a wish to go on a course about how to confront aggressive behaviour calmly.

IVO's report also states that there is a lack of knowledge about how to judge risks and make individual assessments. The staff do not know how to document and report deviations or make a Lex Sarah report. Writing plans of action is also thought to be difficult.

There are no written plans of action for how to counteract violence between residents either.

The management at the home confirms that the staff have asked for more courses, but say that this does not mean that 'someone is good at dealing with a certain individual simply by knowing the person's diagnosis - it's more important to see the whole person'.

IVO does not share this point of view, but is of the opinion that the staff need to know what a certain disability brings with it to be able to design the proper support.

The management also says it is hard to find courses at the right level for increasing competence, and have encouraged the staff to google themselves to see if they can find courses. As for meeting aggressivity calmly, the management expects all staff to work like that, even though they have not had any formal courses.

But IVO does not swallow that - instead they think there should be plans for developing the competence of the staff, and it is up to the management to see to it that they are in place , instead of telling the staff to use Google to find suitable courses for themselves.

The problems named in the IVO report are not new, as far as Kristianstadsbladet knows. A group of previous staff has pointed out that there was no direction or leadership at the home, seven out of eight handed in their notice about a year ago.

During IVO's inspection it was also discovered that unauthorised methods of limitation were being used, mainly that there was no documentation, follow-up or information as to whether alternative methods had been tried.