Aged care watchdog lays down law to Lyndoch Living

The seven recommendations set down for Lyndoch Living by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission:

Areas have been identified in which improvements must be made to ensure compliance with the Quality Standards.

This is based on non-compliance with the Quality Standards as described in this performance report.

1. Establish a system to ensure consumers are free of pain to as great an extent as possible. Establish processes to ensure that reassessment occurs if pain is evident. Ensure that staff charting pain consistently make a record of the existence or not of pain so that any reassessment is accurate.

2. Ensure staff have the skills to manage responsive behaviours of consumers so that care is consistently delivered and delivered in a way that supports the dignity of the consumer.

3. Establish a best practice approach to wound management and demonstrate clinical oversight, so that registered nurses understand the status of any wound at any point in time and can take action if the wound is not resolving.

4. Ensure clinical oversight of unwitnessed falls includes whether neurological observations have been undertaken and that these reflect the service’s policy.

5. Prior to the administration of chemical restraint ensure that all other strategies have been exhausted. Where strategies being used are not successful, demonstrate that other strategies are considered prior to the use of further medication. Ensure records of strategies trialled are specific to the consumer and not generic and demonstrate that clinical staff have a clear understanding of what is working and what is not working. Align staff’s day to day practices with best practice.

6. Ensure the governing body has accurate information on the use of chemical and physical restraint and that consent to the use of restraint is recorded and that any restraint reflects best practice.

7. Establish a system to ensure staff skills and approach to care and services support compliance with the Aged Care Quality Standards.

You can download the full report here.