The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated CareTech Community Services Limited – 196 High Street, in Rickmansworth inadequate and placed it in special measures to protect people, following inspections in July and August.
CareTech Community Services Limited -196 High Street is a residential care home providing personal care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. It supports 12 people.
As well as the overall rating for the service dropping from good to inadequate, the ratings for responsive and well-led have also dropped to inadequate. Safe, caring and effective were rated as requires improvement.
The inspection was prompted in part by a notification of an incident in which a person using the service sustained a serious injury. This incident is subject to further investigation by CQC as to whether any regulatory action should be taken.
The service is now in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made.
Stefan Kallee, CQC deputy director for people with a learning disability and autistic people, said:
“We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Sadly, at CareTech we found that people’s care wasn’t personalised to their needs.
“We found people’s care plans weren’t always updated and staff didn’t always know people’s interests. We saw one person’s care plan didn’t accurately reflect how often they were going home to see their family. Another care plan noted a musical instrument was important to someone and had broken, but not all staff knew about this when caring for them.
“We found widespread and significant shortfalls in leadership at this service. Some staff morale was low as problems weren’t sorted quickly. The provider didn’t have quality assurance checks in place to ensure people were getting good care and support. It took a significant amount of time for repairs to be carried out, and when they were done, it wasn’t always to a good standard, for example a showerhead had been replaced with one too small, so staff were unable to wash people’s hair.
“Some relatives spoke positively about the staff. However, other people and relatives spoke about changes in staffing and how this impacted on the day-to-day running of the home. This referred to the difference, quality of care and knowledge provided by permanent and agency staff.
“Following our inspection, we reported our findings to the provider so they know where we expect to see rapid improvement. If sufficient progress is not made, we will not hesitate to take further action to ensure people’s safety and well-being.”
Inspectors found:
- The provider did not always ensure safe care and treatment because they had not always assessed risks to people's safety, nor done all that was reasonably practicable to mitigate the risks
- The provider did not always ensure that the premises and equipment were maintained properly
- The provider was not always operating effective systems and processes to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service and to assess, monitor and mitigate risks.
However
- People and their relatives spoke well about some staff
- On the day of the inspection six people had gone on holiday and the provider was planning to take the other six people later in the month.