The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Care @ Home Newbury Ltd in Reading inadequate overall, following an inspection in May.
Care @ Home Newbury Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to older people, people living with dementia and people with a physical disability. At the time of the inspection it was providing personal care to 24 people.
The inspection was prompted due to concerns received about staffing and management of the service.
The service was previously rated good overall, and good for being safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
Following the recent inspection, the home’s overall rating, and its ratings for being safe and well-led have dropped from good to inadequate. The ratings for being effective, caring and responsive have dropped from good to requires improvement.
The service is now in special measures which means it will be closely monitored by by CQC and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made...
Rebecca Bauers, CQC’s head of inspection for adult social care, said:
“When we inspected Care @ Home Newbury Ltd, we were incredibly concerned to find neither the provider or the manager had any oversight of the service, which meant people weren’t being cared for safely and were at risk of harm.
“We were told the police were carrying out an investigation after a staff member had stolen from a person in their care. The provider should have informed CQC about the incident, but they hadn’t done so. They should also have carried out their own investigation into the incident, and taken action to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, but they hadn’t done anything to protect people.
“In the meantime, we have taken enforcement action to make sure the service implements the necessary improvements needed. We are also working with external partners who are also monitoring the quality and safety of the service
“People receiving care at home deserve to receive safe care. We have told the provider to make urgent improvements and requested an action plan showing how they will improve the standard of care. We will continue to monitor the service closely in conjunction with the local authority to ensure sufficient improvements are made. If necessary, we will take further action to ensure people are safe.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
- People were not adequately protected from the risk of harm or abuse
- The provider said they were aware of their duty to report safeguarding concerns to the local authority safeguarding teams. Inspectors asked to see records of safeguarding referrals made to the local authority, but the provider said they did not have any
- Inspectors asked to see the staff training matrix, but the provider did not have one
- Patient records were not complete. One person had a catheter, but there was no information recorded in the person's care plan to instruct staff on how to provide catheter care and prevent the person acquiring an infection through the catheter
- Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks were not included in the four staff files reviewed. DBS checks provide information including details about convictions and cautions held on the Police National Computer. The information helps employers make safer recruitment decisions
- People told inspectors staff did not arrive at consistent times for care visits and were frequently late. A staff member said visits were often scheduled so they overlapped, leaving them insufficient time to deliver all support needed and to travel to the next care visit. The registered manager said they did not have a log of late or missed calls to help identify the reasons for late and missed visits and make improvements
- Inspectors reviewed electronic medicines administration records for four people and found there were a large number of gaps which were not accounted for.