The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Radiant Life Care in Rainham inadequate overall following an inspection in September.
Radiant life care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to adults in their own homes. At the time of this inspection, the service was providing personal care to 174 people.
Previously Radiant Care Ltd was rated as good overall. However, following the latest inspection, the rating for the service is now inadequate overall and it is also rated inadequate for being safe and well-led, with effective, responsive and caring rated as requires improvement.
James Frewin, CQC’s head of inspection for adult social care, said:
“It was clear that Radiant Life Care was not being managed well and this posed a real risk to people’s safety, both staff and people using this service.
“Staff told us that colleagues didn’t know how to move people from one place to another using hoists safely, and there was no documentation where managers could check staff’s understanding of this. Without the appropriate skills, both people using the service and staff are at real risk of getting hurt, this isn’t good enough and easily preventable if managers had better systems in place.
"The lack of good guidance around medicines was also very concerning. Without it, people were at a real risk of coming to harm as there were more likely to be errors around dosages, or people not receiving the medication they need to treat their condition.
"We have told the provider it must make urgent improvements to keep people safe. We will continue to monitor the service closely to ensure that these are made. If we are not satisfied that enough improvements have been made, we will not hesitate to take further enforcement action."
Inspectors found the following issues at the service:
- There were concerns with how staff managed the risk of people with medical conditions such as epilepsy and diabetes.
- The provider did not always work with or seek advice from health and social care professionals. This is crucial, especially when people had complex needs like epilepsy risks and diabetes.
- Medicines weren’t managed safely, putting people at risk of medication errors which may harm them.
- Two people made allegations that care staff had stolen from them and the registered manager had not made referrals to the police. The outcome of this investigation carried out by the local authority was inconclusive. The way the leadership managed these incidents could leave people at ongoing risk of theft.
- Two people were identified as being at risk of having seizures. There was no support in place informing staff how to manage the risk linked to their medical condition.
- Staff were not always given training to help them manage people's specialist needs.
- Some staff stated their concerns about their colleagues' ability to use equipment such as a hoist safely. The service had not completed checklists to see if staff understood how to manually handle people safely.
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