Monteith House turns corner after care criticism

As reported by the Gazette at the time, the then-Monteith House - now Clyde Valley - Care Home had an Improvement Notice slapped on it by the Care Inspectorate after it categorised it as “weak” on the quality of its care and support for the residents and also needed to improve its management and leadership.

As if to provide proof that the latter problem had, indeed, been tackled, it was the new manager of the home, James Boyes, who invited the Gazette to the home with unrestricted access to see the improvements.

He said: “Frankly, there was a problem with front-line management here and a lot of the other problems stemmed from that. Now we have really got a grip on what was wrong and have put it right.

“One of the first things I did was to introduce a complete `open door’ policy with the staff so that anything - and I mean anything - that concerned them could be brought to my attention right away and be addressed.

“The result of this is that the people we look after are happier and so are the staff who look after them.”

He pointed to the high ratio of staff to resident, it currently standing at 32 employees looking after 14 residents. This includes “24/7” access to a registered nurse .