Anthony Wilkinson
13 Apr 2021 · Coroner Abigail Combes · South Yorkshire (West District)
The coroner's concerns
1. lack of transparency and candour
“Stars Social Support Limited have a culture which does not encourage transparency or embrace the duty of candour”
2. policy updates not shared via website
“Stars Social Support Limited do not utilise their own website to ensure that policy and legislative changes can be adequately and promptly shared with service users, their families, and staff”
3. inadequate care plan communication and risk assessment management
“Stars Social Support Limited do not have appropriate policies, procedures and checks in place to ensure that updates to care plans are communicated to all staff caring for service users or that the correct care and support plans, and risk assessments, are in the service users home address”
4. use of personal WhatsApp for care plan updates
“Stars Social Support Limited have implemented the use of WhatsApp to ensure staff are aware of updates to service users plans and they require staff to confirm they have read and understood the update prior to caring for an individual”
5. overreliance on WhatsApp for care plan updates
“The use of the WhatsApp group adds in two risks of its own, the first is that there is an over reliance on this being the means by which service users care plans are updated and by default this ends up being the service users care plan”
6. exclusion of external professionals from updates
“visiting professionals are not able to access the WhatsApp group and therefore will not be in receipt of this updated information which may be important for some service users”