Working at Longfield House

Staff numbers and experience levels are sometimes too low, with permanent vacancies filled by agency workers and extra shifts.

staff were concerned about how fragile the balance of staffing was at times in terms of numbers and skill mix. The service had three permanent staff vacancies

Recruitment misses proper checks like employer references and thorough interviews, affecting new staff quality.

We found a lack of rigour with the recruitment process which had not adhered to the provider's own policy. There was an active use of character references rather than previous employers as a second reference.

Some negative talk from longer term staff is putting off newer workers from staying around.

Some staff advised us there was a poor staff culture, which was slowly being addressed, where longer term staff spoke negatively of previous incidents and this deterred less experienced staff from remaining in the service.