Working at The Mill House

Night shifts have too few staff to safely manage emergencies like evacuation.

We identified concerns in relation to the number of staff on shift at night to support people in the event of an emergency such as an evacuation. A relative stated, “I would say that the nighttime and weekend staff there are not the numbers that there are during the day.”

Safety risks like unsecured chemicals, tablets and creams were missed by the home's own checks.

We identified areas of environmental risk that had not been found through the provider’s own audits and checking systems in place, including access to unsecured drink thickener, denture cleaning tablets and prescribed creams placing people at risk.

Managers do not oversee things well enough, missing risks and record problems until inspectors point them out.

The quality audits and monitoring systems in place were found to be ineffective. Risks and concerns identified during this inspection had not been found as a result of the provider’s own governance systems.