A company director and a manager who illegally provided domiciliary care services have been fined £1,760 at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
Star Care Agency Limited was not registered with the Care Quality Commission. It is an offence under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to carry out a regulated activity, such as providing personal care services, without being registered with CQC.
Bruno Ngondonga, sole director of Star Care Agency Limited, and Cliff Lunt, manager, had previously appeared at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court on 31st January 2019 and pleaded guilty to the offence.
On 12 June at Southampton Magistrates’ Court, Mr Ngondonga was ordered to pay a fine of £660 and £4,000 costs, making a total of £4,660.
Mr Lunt was ordered to pay £1,100 and £4,000 costs making a total of £5,100.
The court was told that between 12 December 2016 to 16 February 2018, both men were responsible for the provision of personal care to two people living in Hampshire, whilst the company they operated was unregistered with CQC.
Both men told CQC that Star Care Agency Limited was not providing personal care to adults at risk and yet they were later found to have been doing so for a period of 14 months, without being registered with CQC. This meant that no monitoring or inspection of the service could be carried out by CQC and checks could not be made on the safety of the care provided to people using the service because the service was operating outside of the law.
Joyce Frederick, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Registration, said:
"The law requiring care agecies to register with the Care Quality Commission is there to protect people who need care in their own homes. That ensures that all registered providers are then subject to a system of monitoring and ongoing inspection to make sure that standards are being maintained.
"Providers of personal care services deal in private with people whose circumstances can often make them vulnerable, and who may not be able to report abuse or poor care.
"In these circumstances we will not hesitate to take further action to protect people from providers who ignore the requirements of the law."
The company is no longer providing care services.
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