Care agency urged to improve after breaking national regulations in Poole (From Bournemouth Echo)
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Care agency urged to improve after breaking national regulations in Poole
5:00pm Thursday 24th January 2013 in News By Joanna Codd
A CARE agency has been told it needs to make urgent improvements after breaking national regulations in the Poole area.
The Care Quality Commission issued a formal warning to SCA Care following two unannounced inspections in November and December.
The health and social care watchdog found that care workers were missing visits.
Also, people who relied on the service were not always being supported to eat and drink enough.
Appropriate arrangements for recording medicine were not in place, and medicines were not being administered safely.
Individuals and their relatives also met “significant and persistent difficulties” in making contact with the SCA’s Wallisdown office to address difficulties or ask for help.
SCA Care currently provides care for 144 clients in their own homes in Poole and the surrounding areas.
Following the issue of four warning notices to SCA, Ian Biggs, deputy director of the CQC in the south said: “Care agencies provide a vital service to help people get on with their daily lives.
“But if they can’t be relied on to turn up as planned it can be very worrying, particularly for people who depend on their care worker and may have no one else to call on.
“SCA Care must not take on any new clients until this has been resolved to our satisfaction.”
Mr Biggs added: “We will return in the near future and if we find that this agency is not making the required progress we won’t hesitate to use our legal powers to protect the people who use the service.”
‘Disappointed’
An SCA spokeswoman said the agency was “highly disappointed” to have had the warning.
“We accept the criticism and deeply regret any distress, inconvenience or interruption to service experienced by any of our care customers or their families,” she said.
“We also regret the impact this situation may have had on our excellent reputation to date and any distress to SCA’s customers in other areas not affected by these matters.
“As a matter of urgency we have implemented concrete steps to make sure that we comply fully with CQC and other legal regulations in the Poole area.”
Comments(7)
Jefferis1
says...
8:32pm Thu 24 Jan 13
billd766
says...
12:46am Fri 25 Jan 13
Jefferis1 wrote:If I was the regional manager of SCA and a new manager was appointed I would certainly keep an eye out for the first 3 to 6 months.
I worked for SCA Poole until I went on Maternity leave, the previous manager (who left in Sept 2012) worked very hard to maintain a very high standard of care for ALL clients, and the whole office team (who have all left since new manager was appointed) worked very hard to ensure that clients never missed a call and had cosistant carers who ere all very capable of doing a fantastic job! Even when levels of staff sickness was high the office staff gave up their own time i.e weeknds and evenings off, after working a 40 hour + week in te office to ensure ALL CALLS WERE KEPT. If you look back at CQC reports prior to Sept 2012 you will see high stadards were maintained my previour manager and she personally worked a 7 day week nearly every week. Being the manager of a care agencey is not a 9 - 5 job and oftern staff were in the office at 7am and not leaving before 7pmtoensure ALL calls were sceduled an carers had a good, easy to follow rota and clients were having regular carers. On times i was in the office the phone rang NONSTOP but all calls were returned and staff were invited to come into the office at anytime to discuss any concerns they may have had. i am saddened by the CQC reports because years of hard work have been lost in a short few months, I hope that all clients are safe and well and they suffer no long term effects from the treatment in the last few months. I also hope that all carers working in these conditions are not held responsible for any of the missed calls or neglect of the clients. Lets just hope things imrove for the sake of the clients and carers.
If during that burn in period I found that some staff were leaving but if I found that the the entire staff had quit under the new manager you would hear alarm bells ringing all over the county and the new manager would be in front of me first thing in the morning and I would be DEMANDING answers.
guisselle
says...
4:54am Fri 25 Jan 13
e.g. State registered or n.v.q?
Looking after the elderly is a skill
and also common sense such as
making sure there is a jug of water
for a drink!
Holes Bay Curve
says...
8:12am Fri 25 Jan 13
guisselle
says...
12:38pm Fri 25 Jan 13
they really were made of sterner stuff
in those days! Empathy and spades
of common sense and non-judgmental!
I will always remember the nurse who
was kind to me when I was having my
son, and also can't forget the unkind
Sister S R N, who made me cry some years later!
Baywolf
says...
10:14am Sat 26 Jan 13
bbird says...
7:26pm Thu 24 Jan 13
As long as care in the home (or in nursing homes) is provided by profit making organisations, to often extremely vulnerable and confused people, we need to be very worried. Not that NHS care is always fit for purpose either nowadays, but that's another story.