The brief
A number of areas of concern were noted at a Charity housing and support provider during a safeguarding inspection, this raised questions over the robustness of how the provider was managing the COVID LFT and PCR testing, recording and evidencing processes across their 16 care homes. The Charity approached our auditor for advice on how TIAA could work with them to both provide assurance as to the level of compliance and to provide support with improving the processes where these were failing.
The process
Our auditor worked with the Client to develop an audit scope that tested the arrangements in place across all of the Charity’s Care Homes for managing COVID testing of employees. This included ensuring employees adhere to the Charity’s guidance on the wearing of and disposal of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to reduce the risk of cross infection and for recording/monitoring test completion results centrally to provide oversight of the controls. The review was also scoped to compare practices across all homes visited and to flag any significant differences in approach.
The outcome
The reported outcomes included some significant breakdown in controls which meant that the Charity was not able to monitor compliance centrally and that a number of home were not able to provide assurance that all staff who had worked had returned a negative test result at the required frequency. TIAA’s team worked with the Client to ensure gaps were addressed and improvements and areas of good practice were disseminated.
Our team were commended for their professional, understanding, flexible and friendly approach during the review with the care home staff feeding back that the nature of the auditors approach whilst on site was both insightful and supportive.