The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has again rated Copthorne Complete Home Care Limited in Northfield, Shrewsbury, inadequate, and taken further action placed to protect people following an inspection in February and March.
Copthorne Complete Homecare Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. This inspection was carried out to follow up on concerns from a previous inspection.
Following this inspection, the overall rating for the service, as well as the areas of safe, effective, responsive, and well-led have been rated inadequate again. Caring has been rated requires improvement again.
The service remains in special measures which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and it will be monitored to check sufficient improvements have been made. CQC is also taking further regulatory action, which Copthorne Complete Homecare Limited can appeal, and CQC will report on when legally able to do so.
Andy Brand, CQC deputy director of operations in the midlands, said:
“When we inspected Copthorne Complete Homecare Limited, it was disappointing that we continued to identify shortfalls that compromised people’s safety and wellbeing.
“We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people using a homecare service to treat people safely and effectively, but this wasn’t the case.
“Leaders were not doing enough to identify risks to people. It was also concerning that when incidents occurred that placed people at harm, investigations and follow up actions hadn’t always been done.
“Staff had recorded injuries they had observed on people on body maps, but we saw no investigations into the causes of these. By not reviewing accidents and incidents to learn lessons, the provider put people at risk of avoidable harm because they could happen again.
“In addition, managers didn’t work in partnership with other agencies to ensure the safe care and treatment of people. For example, where there was an allegation of abuse, this information hadn’t been shared with the local authority safeguarding team to ensure the person was safe.
“We have told leaders where we expect to see rapid, widespread improvements and will continue to monitor the service closely to keep people safe during this time. We will return to check on their progress and won’t hesitate to take further action if people aren’t receiving the care they have a right to expect.”
Inspectors found:
- Staff still hadn’t received appropriate support and training to carry out their roles effectively
- The safeguarding policy contained inaccurate information regarding important contact details for people
- Staff didn’t have access to risk assessments to aid their understanding about potential risks to people
- Processes didn’t support the safe management of medicines
- People’s rights around consent weren’t considered in planning how they wanted their care delivered
- Staff didn’t have information to manage people’s health conditions such as epilepsy, dementia, agitation and skin conditions
- Staff had received training in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) but didn’t understand the implications of this on their role.