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TRUDI TALKS SAFETY IN CARE AT CARE CAMPAIGN FOR THE VULNERABLE'S MONTHLY NETWORKING MEETING HELD AT CROWNE PLAZA GERRARDS CROSS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Trudi Scrivener Owner of Ashridge Care Home and Director at White Leaf Support talked about the use of safety monitoring in their three small care homes for people with autism and learning disabilities.

Trudi Scrivener, Owner of Ashridge Home Care and Director at White Leaf Support talked about the use of Safety Monitoring in their 3 small care homes for people with autism and learning disabilities.

Trudi explained the process they went through before installing CCTV in communal areas, this included consulting with family members and with staff. Families members were thrilled and there were no major issues with staff. She went on to explain that CCTV can impact people’s privacy and careful decisions need to be made that are in the best interest of people who do not have the capacity. The team at White Leaf Support undertook a privacy impact assessment for each resident and documented carefully who would have access to the images.

Importantly Trudi explained the benefits of Safety Monitoring in the three homes and described the main points as:

1. Being able to review incidents of challenging behaviour to help staff understand what happened and how it might be prevented in future
2. Using footage for staff training to discuss ‘what could we do differently and what can we learn from the situation?
3. Using it to investigate allegations of abuse – CCTV clears up any ambiguity and allows the organisation to deal immediately with any incident of abuse but equally if the allegation is not founded then to be able to support the staff member involved.

In summary, Trudi said that CCTV is literally part of the furniture, there are benefits to both the staff and to the residents. She sees it as good practice and has definitely been a positive experience.