The Care Quality Commission has taken enforcement action to cancel the registration of a care provider, Allcare Community Care Services Trafford Limited.
The provider therefore is not legally allowed to operate the care service Allcare Community Care Services, a home care service based in Wallsend, North Tyneside.
The service was registered with CQC in July 2017. Its first inspection was conducted in May 2018 and was prompted in part by information shared by police relating to an ongoing investigation. Inspectors identified several breaches to the regulations, including poor staff recruitment and training and people were not actively protected against the risk of harm. The service was rated Inadequate and placed into special measures.
Following the inspection, CQC took urgent enforcement action to restrict the number of people the service could provide care to. Conditions were also imposed on the service’s registration, forcing it to review its care standards and provide relevant information to CQC on how it planned to improve. The concerns were so serious that inspectors decided to begin the process to cancel the provider’s registration.
Inspectors returned to the service in August and found many of the previous concerns had not been addressed fully, such as the lack of a registered manager and staff recruitment and training. Following this inspection two fixed penalty notices totalling £2500 were issued to the provider because they failed to inform CQC of notifiable deaths and serious incidents.
The registered provider, Allcare Community Care Services Trafford Limited, appealed against the CQC’s decision, to close the service, to the Care Standards Tribunal which began to hear the case on 4 March. After hearing the evidence, the Care Standards Tribunal ruled in CQC’s favour on 26 March 2019. The service is now no longer registered with CQC.
Read the full reports on each inspection.
Sue Howard, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, said:
“Despite the service being placed into special measures and restrictions being imposed, as well as warned we would take further enforcement action, the provider continued to ignore our concerns.
“Having found continued areas of poor care and given no credible assurance that the quality of the care would improve we were left no option but to seek the removal of the provider’s registration.
“We monitored the service closely, alongside North Tyneside Council who have supported people to find alternative care arrangements, and found little sign of improvement.
“Our highest priority is the safety and well-being of those in care, we will not hesitate to use our enforcement powers to ensure those people are kept safe.”
Ends
For further information, please contact David Fryer, Regional Engagement Manager on david.fryer@cqc.org.uk or 07754 438750 or Mark Humphreys, Regional Engagement Officer on 0191 201 1675 or mark.humphreys@cqc.org.uk.
For enquiries about this press release please email regional.engagement@cqc.org.uk.
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Having found continued areas of poor care and given no credible assurance that the quality of the care would improve we were left no option but to seek the removal of the provider's registration.
Sue Howard, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care