The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has put State of The Art Care Solutions Limited, Stalybridge, Cheshire into special measures to protect their users, after rating the service as Inadequate after an inspection in January this year.
State of the Art Care Solutions Limited is located in the Stalybridge area of Tameside and is an independent domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own homes. There are two directors (one of which is the registered manager), one care co-ordinator and two support staff. The service is run from the registered manager's home situated on a residential estate.
We undertook an announced inspection of State of the Art Care Solutions Limited on 13 January 2016. The inspection was announced 48 hours prior to our visit to ensure that the registered manager, manager or other responsible person was available to assist with our inspection.
Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all adult social care services are given a rating to help people choose care. We ask five questions, are services; safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Overall, State of the Art Care Solutions has been rated as Inadequate.
The full report from the inspection can be found here on our website: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-1783377386.
We identified multiple breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations when we inspected.
The report identified a number of other areas which we found deeply concerning including:
Systems and processes were not in place to effectively operate and ensure the provision of safe and effective care.
- A lack of care and assessment documentation to demonstrate that people received a service which met and responded to their needs.
- Safe and appropriate recruitment and selection practices had not been used to ensure that suitable and skilled staff had been employed to care for vulnerable people.
- The service did not have a complaints policy and had not sought the views of people and their relatives.
- A lack of leadership, management and governance arrangements.
- A lack of understanding of their responsibilities as a provider of personal care services registered with the CQC.
Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the North, said:
“People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care.
“We found the care provided at State of The Art Care Solutions Limited fell a very long way short what we expect services to provide. This is why we have intervened to keep people using this service safe.
“Our first instinct is to make sure the service improves, but we must take action to protect people when we are worried about their safety.”
If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains 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 the service.
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For further information please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966. Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters.
For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.
Read reports from our checks on the standards at State of The Art Care Solutions Limited