Dolphin Healthcare - Wiltshire

Dolphin Healthcare Wiltshire is service that domiciliary care agency that provides care at home to young people and adults. At the time of our inspection there were 24 people using the service.

People’s experience of using the service and what we found.

Not all risks people faced had been identified, assessed or mitigated, which did not promote safety.

People were placed at increased risk of harm by care plans which lacked detail to provide guidance for staff and ensure consistent support.

The electronic recording system did not always work which meant staff could not always access information needed to support people safely.

Medicines were not always managed safely; staff were administering medicines they were not trained to administer which could place people at risk of harm. Medication records were not complete or accurate and systems had not identified this.

People were not always supported in a person-centred way; staff did not understand people’s needs and did not engage well with them.

Staff were not always recruited safely, recruitment records showed that not all references were obtained and work histories were incomplete.

Governance systems were not in place or effective to keep people safe and make sure they received good care.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The service was registered with us on 4 October 2023, and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted by concerns received about the safe provision of services. A decision was made for us to inspect the domains of safe and well led to examine those risks.

During the inspection we found there was a concern with the service, so we widened the scope of the inspection to include caring, responsive and effective.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to Regulations 9, 12 and 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2006 (Regulated Activities) regulations 2014.

Please see the actions we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this time frame and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.