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Care Opinion

The care of my mother

Posted By limaxt96

"The care of my mother"

About: Camberwell Green Aged Care

(as a relative),

During the 12 months plus, that my mother was in care at this establishment, my family were very disappointment with the treatment of her by the management and the staff on numerous occasions. In my opinion, problems were with time delays with response to her calling for help, the way that the staff spoke to her, many of the staff had limited English and were often hard for her to understand. I believe the physical treatment of her one occasion left her with much bruising. I feel the staff were not properly trained in management of dementia patients. In her last months when she was incontinent her pads were changed infrequently. The manager of Camberwell Green was very remiss by not responding to our phone calls or e-mails regarding problems with our mother. Her room was often not cleaned, even though we were told when we decided that we would use this establishment that they would do so. Her laundry was often left on the floor for a number of days and often when it was returned it was not hers. These might seem minor things, but they distressed my mother and us very much. Overall we were very unhappy.

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Responses

Response from Stephen Wiblin, Head of Clinical Strategy & Development, Allity Aged Care 5 years ago
Stephen Wiblin
Head of Clinical Strategy & Development,
Allity Aged Care

Submitted on 27/03/2019 at 11:29 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 11:33 AM

Dear limaxt96

Thank you for sharing your story, we value all feedback we receive and use it to improve the service we provide. We are very sorry to hear that your mother’s care experience at Camberwell Green has been disappointing, and take this opportunity to acknowledge that there were things that needed to improve and reassure you we have made good progress in some of the areas you have highlighted.

As part of our continuous improvement focus, the call bell monitoring system across Allity was recently upgraded, making local monitoring of call bells by the staff easier and quicker. A full review was conducted on call bell response times, we commenced daily reporting and investigation of any calls not responded to within the expected timeframes and to identify any trends in prolonged response times. If any trends emerge, they are followed up immediately. We have also now revised the escalation of call bell notifications so that senior management in the Home is alerted within a 10 minute timeframe.

As a Signature Home, our intention is to maintain a superior living environment and services for our residents at Camberwell Green. Every Home has a housekeeping and cleaning roster based on the size and configuration of the residence. On investigation, we were made aware that Camberwell Green have had some inconsistencies with the laundry service due to staffing and have added an extra six hours per week for laundry staff to ensure clothes are returned the same day and staff members have additional time allocated to attend to general tidiness of rooms. In addition, we have reviewed housekeeping schedules to include more regular steam cleaning of carpet and upholstery. The Home’s management team perform regular spot checks to further monitor the cleanliness in residents’ rooms and communal areas.

In response to your specific feedback relating to your mother’s care, this is an area that we take very seriously.

While we have provided an explanation of our approach to incidences such as bruising, supporting of residents living with dementia, specialist staff training and continence management below, we also respect your mother’s individual needs and privacy with concerns related to her personal care. As such, we would welcome an opportunity to speak with you personally, if you would allow.

It is standard in our policies and practices that every incident of bruising is thoroughly investigated by the Home’s clinical team for signs of improper physical handling or mistreatment and documented in a formal incident report. Staff are required to regularly complete manual handling training and education with the support of physiotherapist instructions on the degree of assistance a resident is assessed to need.

In matters relating to the quality of care for your mother, we would ideally have addressed this at the scheduled care planning consultation with you and our clinical team where any changes to the care needs of your mother should have been reflected in an updated care plan. This includes, but not limited to continence management and dementia support.

However, we acknowledge that your expectations have not been met, irrespective of the assurances we aim to provide in respect to our processes or the specialist training staff are provided, in any instance where staff are not meeting standards, we are absolutely committed to ensuring there are full or further investigations conducted.

Your feedback is very much appreciated and has been discussed with the management team at Camberwell Green; it has been highlighted that the consistency and quality of communication with residents and families must remain a priority and ensure all feedback provided is addressed promptly.

The management team at Camberwell Green would like to extend their apologies for any distress that these concerns have caused you and your mother. We hope this has addressed some of your concerns and will certainly investigate any specific circumstances should you wish to provide further feedback.

We encourage you to contact Allity’s Consumer Liaison and Investigations Officer, Gabriella, by email at feedback@allity.com.au

Kind regards

Stephen

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