Telford care agency placed in special measures
Unsafe recruitment practices, people being put at risk of potential harm and staff arriving late to calls were among the failings resulting in a care agency being rated inadequate and placed in special measures.
The Care Quality Commission's report highlights failures at Wellington-based Essence Telford. It was published after a recent inspection.
The agency cares for older people, dementia sufferers and those with disabilities in their own homes. The watchdog warns that the agency will be reinspected within six months and if significant improvements are not made the CQC can take action to shut it down.
Read the full CQC report here
Inspectors said the majority of people they spoke with expressed concerns about not receiving care at the times they needed it and said staff often arrived late, while one relative raised concerns that staff did not stay the agreed amount of time.
The report said: "Risks to people had not been assessed or shared with staff. Recruitment processes were not effective and therefore did not protect people from the risk of potential harm."
Inspectors looked at the recruitment records for four members of staff and saw that checks to ensure they were recruited safely had not been carried out.
The service was also marked down for not having any systems in place to monitor the quality of care provided.
Across the five key areas rated in the inspection, the CQC said it was inadequate for providing a safe and well-led service. It was told it requires improvement to provide an effective, caring and responsive service.
The report said: "The overall rating for this service is inadequate and the service is therefore in special measures.
"Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if we have not taken immediate action to propose to cancel the provider's registration of the service, will be inspected again within six months.
"The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe. If not enough improvement is made so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service."
