A Croydon domiciliary care agency has been rated Inadequate overall by the Care Quality Commission.
Medacs Healthcare - Croydon, provides personal care to older adults, younger disabled adults, and children living in their own houses and flats in the community. It was rated Inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led following an inspection in October 2018. Previously it was rated Requires Improvement overall.
At the time of CQC’s visit, 648 people were receiving personal care from Medacs Healthcare. The inspection was prompted in part by concerns shared with CQC by commissioning authorities about call punctuality and shortfalls in care delivery. CQC’s comprehensive inspection followed up on those concerns.
The inspection found breaches of regulations in relation to staff training, the safety of care, staff deployment, person centred care, complaints, governance and statutory notifications.
CQC found that the care people received was not safe. The majority of people's care calls were not delivered at the time they were expected and people gave examples of where this had impacted significantly upon them and the safety of the care that they received. People did not always receive support from a consistent staff team. A relative said the timekeeping of care workers was so poor they had chosen to go without a service. They explained, "They are meant to come at 9am. They come at 10, or maybe even 11.”
Records relating to risks people faced were inconsistent and inaccurate. People's medicines records were not kept up to date and CQC identified instances where medicines records showed a potential overdose.
Care plans lacked information about how to provide support to people in a way that responded appropriately to their needs. Care plans did not identify what was important to people and did not demonstrate that people had been involved in their care planning and there was a lack of information about how to promote people's independence.
People and relatives told us their complaints were not responded to and inspectors saw that numerous concerns about staff punctuality and care delivery had not been picked up through monitoring.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector for Adult Social Care in London and South, said: “The level of care at Medacs Healthcare – Croydon is totally unacceptable. Clients had no idea what time care workers would arrive at their homes and people did not always receive the standard of care they were entitled to.
“Medacs Healthcare - Croydon is now in special measures. It will be kept under review and will be inspected again within six months.
“If not enough improvement is made within this time we will consider further action in line with our enforcement procedures including preventing the provider from operating this service.”
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