The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Elmar Home Care Limited, Keighley that they must make improvements to protect the safety and welfare of people using their services.
CQC carried out its most recent inspection on 16, 22, 23 and 24 August. Inspectors found that the care being provided, was failing to provide care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive or well led.
The report published by CQC can be found on this website.
Elmar Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency which provides care services to people in their own homes. When CQC visited the office the registered manager told us 88 people were receiving a personal care service.
People who used the service and relatives praised the kindness and caring attitude of the staff. However, they expressed concerns about the reliability of the service and the turnover of staff. They told us staff did not arrive at the times which had been agreed with the agency. Inspectors found agreed call times were recorded on the computerised system however there was no documented evidence to show when or who had been involved in discussing and agreeing these times. In addition they saw issues around call times had been raised with the provider, sometimes repeatedly, but had not been resolved.
Some of the findings from the latest inspection included:
Inspectors found medicines were not managed safely as there were no records to show what medicines people were prescribed and administration records were incomplete. This meant CQC could not be assured people were receiving their medicines appropriately. These concerns had been identified at the previous inspection in September 2014.
Accidents and incidents were not always recorded correctly and there was a lack of evidence to show what action had been taken when these had occurred. There was also a lack of strong leadership, ineffective quality assurance systems, weak communication and poor record keeping meant issues identified at this inspection had not been identified or resolved by the provider.
A CQC spokesperson for Adult Social Care in the North, said:
“The care provided by Elmar Home Care Limited was not good enough. It is a matter of concern, that breaches identified at an inspection in September 2014 had not been addressed. This service is not learning from its previous report.
“The agency must as a matter of some urgency, take action to resolve the issues with administration of medicines. The service has known about the problem for two years and they should have taken action by now. Perhaps, most important of all, the service must take action to improve the reliability of the service and call times. Service users left too long, without medication or attention is not acceptable.
“People are entitled to services that deliver consistently good care and with an overall rating of Inadequate, Elmar Home Care Limited, will be placed into special measures by CQC. This regime is designed to make sure there is a timely and coordinated response to inadequate care and we will use it alongside our enforcement policy.
“We have been working with local agencies to ensure that people using the services of Elmar Home Care Limited are not at undue risk. We will continue to monitor the service. CQC will consider the appropriate regulatory response to resolve the problems found.”
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For further information, please contact CQC Regional Engagement Manager David Fryer on 07901 514220.
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