The Elms Residential Care Home

The Elms Residential Home provides personal care and accommodation for up to 27 older people, some with dementia, in a four-storey house with en-suite bedrooms and communal facilities. At inspection, 21 people were receiving care. While risks to people's health had been assessed, staff were not always aware of these risks or how to keep people safe. Records did not demonstrate safe practice, and staff had not consistently recorded when topical medicines were applied. The service also struggled with frequent changes in staffing, including high numbers of new and agency workers who lacked knowledge of individual residents' needs, and did not have effective systems to verify agency staff identity or confirm appropriate training and employment checks were in place.

Staff understood their safeguarding responsibilities and supported people to have maximum choice and control over their lives using the least restrictive approaches. However, recent significant changes in managers and senior staff had impacted the quality of standards across the service.