Dundee care home told to make urgent improvements

A care home for older people in Dundee has been told to make urgent improvements in the care provided to vulnerable residents.

The Care Inspectorate has served a formal Improvement Notice on Brae Cottage Residential Home following an inspection which raised serious concerns.

The notice lists five areas which require urgent improvement.

These are staffing levels, restraint of service users, environmental risks, heating in the home and radiator safety.

The Improvement Notice says management at the care home must ensure that suitably qualified and competent staff work in the home in such numbers as are appropriate to the health, welfare and safety of service users.

It also says managers must “put in place and implement a system to ensure that no service user is subject to restraint unless it is the only practicable way of securing their welfare and safety.”

The service must also carry out full assessments on all environmental issues which may cause harm to service users.

And the service must monitor and maintain adequate temperature within all areas of the care service.

Radiators in the home must be fitted with covers to protect service users for the risk of burns.

A spokesperson for the Care Inspectorate said: “Our inspection raised serious concerns and we will report on that inspection in full in due course. The Improvement Notice we have issued clearly lays out the improvements we must see so that the care provided to residents improves quickly.

“We will visit this care home again soon to check on progress and if we are not satisfied that the matters raised are being addressed urgently we will not hesitate to take further action.”

The improvement notice is available here: http://cinsp.in/1WNfR0j

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