We visited Loppington House and College after concerns were raised about changes within the organisational structure that were negatively impacting on the service provided to the people who lived there.Fourteen adults and four students lived on site which is currently made up of the college accommodation and four other properties. We will refer to all accommodation as Loppington House throughout this report unless specifically referring to a single property.
Due to the complex needs of the people living at Loppington House we were unable to speak with more than two people to obtain their views about the service provided. We visited each property and observed practice and we spoke with staff on duty. We also spoke with the manager, the college principal, two administrative assistants and a representative from the organisation. We reviewed extracts from care and support plans as well as other records referred to within this report.
On the day of our inspection we saw examples of good care and support and two people told us that they felt well looked after. We were told that activities for people within the local community had reduced over recent months and when activities took place staff had to be creative about how they could support others at the same time. This had, on occasion, a negative impact on people's opportunities.
A large number of staff had recently left the service following organisational changes and although the numbers on shift were being maintained there had, according to the manager, been a loss of expertise which was starting to impact on opportunities for people living at the home.
Staff felt largely well supported but recognised that their opportunities for training had reduced. Records showed that training was largely out of date and the current situation within the organisation meant that none had been booked in the foreseeable future. Staff told us that morale was low.
Since taking over the running of Loppington House in November 2011, Shropshire Leasing had failed to implement systems and structures in order to support the running of the home. They had not implemented quality assurance tools to identify if people were receiving a good service. They had also not implemented monitoring tools to check that the home was running safely and effectively. They had not updated the statement of purpose to reflect current arrangements and had failed to invest in the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings. As a result people were living in accommodation that is run down, poorly maintained and institutional in character. The organisation had yet to implement a refurbishment programme (although work had started on one property and stopped) and other concerns in relation to the home's financial viability had yet to be resolved.
We found that the home's complaints procedure did not support people to make complants about the service and the manager could not demonstrate that people who did complain, had received a satisfactory outcome.