Care home social isolation

5 items 2 sources

Residents in care homes being at risk of social isolation due to an insufficient provision of engaging activities.

Care home social isolation has been flagged across 2 independent accountability sources:

1 inquiry rec 4 PFD reports

This issue has been identified by multiple independent accountability bodies, suggesting it is a recurring systemic concern.

Recommendation: Health Boards should ensure that a member of nursing staff is available to deal with questions from relatives during visiting periods.

Gov response: Section 4.2 of the Scottish Government's response addresses this by highlighting the Participation Standard, which the Scottish Health Council uses to monitor and drive improvement in how people are involved in the NHS, including communication. …

Concerns: The care home lacked a documented system to restrict access to harmful items for at-risk residents and staff training on isolation's impact. Crucially, there were significant failures in transferring vital suicide risk information between agencies during patient handover.

Concerns: Social services struggled to properly investigate safeguarding referrals, appoint social workers within a reasonable timeframe, or conduct timely home suitability assessments for vulnerable residents.

Concerns: Adult Social Care failed to take appropriate safeguarding action despite significant police concerns, only attempting telephone contact and sending a letter, without making any physical visit to a vulnerable individual.

Concerns: Prolonged social isolation for a patient with C. difficile negatively impacted her well-being, compounded by inadequate nutritional information recording and assessment.