The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has downgraded the rating of Willow Home Care Ltd, a home care service in Shropshire, from requires improvement to inadequate and placed it into special measures to protect people following an inspection in July.
Willow Home Care Ltd, run by a company of the same name, provides care and support to adults living in their own homes.
CQC carried out the inspection after receiving serious concerns about late calls, missed calls, and poor standards of care. Inspectors found these concerns were substantiated and the service had breached regulations related to managing risks and good management.
CQC has downgraded the ratings for how effective, caring and responsive the service is from good to inadequate. How safe and well-led the service is have dropped requires improvement to inadequate.
CQC has placed the service in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review to keep people safe while improvements are made.
Amanda Lyndon, CQC deputy director of adult social care, said:
“We were disappointed to find that Willow Home Care failed to provide safe care and understand people’s individual needs. The concerns we received prior to the inspection were reflected in our findings, as the service wasn’t getting the basics of care right to support people to live healthy and fulfilling lives.
“People and their relatives were disappointed with the service they received. Staff were consistently late to visits or missed them entirely. Leaders failed to ensure people received care from consistent members of staff, and people and relatives found it hard to contact leaders at Willow Home Care, who didn’t respond to their enquiries.
“Leaders at the service failed to listen to concerns about safety or investigate incidents, preventing them from identifying learning opportunities and potential service improvements. Staff didn’t know how to report and record incidents. Our inspectors heard about an incident where a person had fallen in the last 12 months but there was no record of this having happened. Their failure to properly record information meant leaders couldn’t identify trends and consider ways to prevent incidents from happening again.
“We also found management and staff were unable to recognise when they needed to refer people to other medical professionals for further help and support. One person experienced a seizure despite having no history of seizures. Staff didn’t complete a further assessment to ensure they were providing care that met their needs, putting them at risk of further harm.
“We have told Willow Home Care where they need to make urgent improvements to ensure people receive the care they deserve. We will closely monitor the service to ensure people remain safe while this happens and have begun the process of taking further regulatory action to address the issues.”
Inspectors found:
- Leaders didn’t carry out all the necessary recruitment checks for new staff. They didn’t provide adequate training and supervision to make sure staff had the skills needed to support people.
- The service didn’t work closely with partners to make sure people experienced consistent care, including when people moved between services.
- Staff didn’t keep people’s care plans and risk assessments up-to-date to ensure support met their needs. They hadn’t involved people in planning their care, and plans contained inaccurate information.
- Leaders didn’t assess potential risks to people’s health and wellbeing, which meant they couldn’t provide guidance to staff on how to mitigate these.
- Staff didn’t support people to live healthier lives with as much independence as possible. They didn’t work with people to delay or reduce their future needs for care and support.
- The service didn’t provide care that considered people’s individual needs, preferences or ambitions.
- Staff didn’t treat colleagues in partner organisations with kindness and respect.