An independent investigation into the care and ... - Hundred Families

social service staff; poor communication; lack of leadership; falling asleep at meetings;
concerns to do with several serious incidents involving CMHT patients.
10.13 Team manager 1 expressed her concern about the difficulties she had experienced
managing senior social worker 1’s poor performance and said that the advice she was
receiving from the LBE human resources department made it difficult to do this
effectively. She told us that following senior social worker 1’s return from suspension and
sick leave she was told:
“…he was on a phased return. I was then told that I could not manage him while
on a phased return. He has a long phased return and when he finally came back
on his full time hours, I was then told by [human resources], you have to start
back again with the original performance targets”
10.14 She said trust management had not given her enough support:
“I needed [human resources] support ... I had been asking senior management for
assistance since 2009 with the issues I was facing with some of the members of my
team.”
10.15 Team manager 1 and lead nurse 1 told us that the CMHT worked round senior social
worker 1’s shortcomings. For example, when she started as manager of the team, senior
social worker 1 was unable to produce records of his supervision of social work staff
covering the previous three months. Consequently team manager 1 and lead nurse 1 took
responsibility for the supervision of the staff.
10.16 Lead nurse 1 was also given responsibility for allocations as:
“there was a history of [senior social worker 1] not making the allocations either in
a timely manner or that they went missing, so this was historical.”
10.17 According to lead nurse 1, senior social worker 1’s performance had an adverse
impact on the CMHT team and as a result she took on the role of duty manager because:
“There was no feeling of real support or that people could trust his decision-
making, and when discussions were being had in MDT [multi-disciplinary team]
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