Inverness daycare service’s ‘weak’ inspection ratings spark deadline from Care Inspectorate for improvements to be made at the Highland site
Inspectors have told an Inverness primary school's daycare service to make improvements after it rated it 'weak' in a number of areas.
Milton of Leys Primary School Childcare Service has been given until June 19 to act on several recommendations from the Care Inspectorate.
It follows an unannounced visit by two of the organisation's inspectors in March.
A newly-published report into that visit rated the service as 'weak' in three out of four areas, and 'adequate' in the other.
The weak ratings were received for it "care, play and learning", its "leadership" and its "staff team".
The adequate rating was secured for the service's "setting".
Explaining some of the weak ratings, the inspectors said that some of the information held on the children "had not been regularly reviewed and as a result did not reflect children's current needs".
They warned that this "had the potential to compromise the quality of support children received".
And they added: "Medication was not consistently and safely managed, and auditing was ineffective.
"For example, information was wrongly recorded for the dosage of a child's medication. Information recorded on an alert card did not correspond with information in a personal care plan.
"Similarly, information on a medical form did not match the information recorded in a personal care plan. This meant that a child may not have received the correct care. As a result children were at risk of not receiving the correct dosage or support."
They also noted "inconsistencies in the quality of play and learning", adding: "Most nursery children were engaged in their play throughout the day however, at times, not all children were meaningfully occupied.
"Staff did not always notice and respond appropriately to children."
Issuing recommendations, it said that the service must carry out a number of steps by June 19. These included ensuring personal plans are regularly reviewed and updated, and ensuring all staff "are aware of and understand the information within the personal plans and use this to effectively meet each child’s needs".
They also said that the service needed to ensure staff "are knowledgeable and competent in relation to safe, consistent record keeping and administration of medication", and also carry out work to ensure sufficient management of "the storage, management and administration of medicine".
However, despite the weak scores the inspectors added that "children were supported by staff who were calm and were obviously fond of them. Staff interactions as a team were respectful and supportive."
They also noted that “children had opportunities to be active as free flow between the indoors and outdoors was available for most of the day”.
But they added that despite those positives there were "insufficient staff to meet the needs of children consistently" and that, although "minimum adult:child ratios were met... this did not provide sufficient support to effectively meet all children's needs".
The inspectors added: "Some staff told us that, 'sometimes it can feel stretched', and that they felt 'there were not enough opportunities to sit and listen, spend quality time with the children as much as we would like'."
This, inspectors felt, was reflected in the ability of staff to effectively supervise the children, saying that this "was not effective across the service" and that staff were occasionally "poorly positioned" in part due to the layout of the early learning centre's building and its outside area.
"Some families told us, 'If the children are playing outside sometimes they are out of view of the staff who are out there which worries me as they are then not being supervised', and 'It's clear the staff are overstretched sometimes'."
The report issued a requirement that the service "must ensure there is sufficient staff for effective supervision to ensure children’s safety and to meet their needs consistently".
