Working at Balmoral Care Home

Staffing is adequate but some units have just enough staff to keep an eye on people rather than chat or do one-to-one, and agency staff sometimes slow things down.

One relative commented, “There does seem to be enough on [Name of unit]. There is enough for them to spend time chatting... whereas on [Name of unit] there is just enough to keep an eye on people rather than interact...” One staff commented, “...sometimes we have agency. Some agency staff are better than others... it makes the day go longer.”

Some staff have not had all their supervisions this year, so support and development chats are behind schedule.

The supervision tracker for 2024 showed some staff had not received the number of supervisions identified by the provider policy.

Medication recording has some gaps like timing for paracetamol and storage of controlled drugs, even though fixed quickly.

Improvements in recording were needed for one medicine, Paracetamol, that needed to be given four hours apart... controlled drugs were not stored according to regulations, the manager provided assurance that this would be rectified immediately.