OPERATORS of a care provider in Wareham have apologised to the people who use their services and their loved ones, after being given a ‘requires improvement’ rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

South West Supported Living services - run by Community Integrated Care - was inspected by the CQC on December 10.

At the time of the inspection, the service was providing personal care to 15 people with a learning disability and autistic people across six settings in the Bournemouth area. 

The service has a central office in Red Oak Court, Wareham. 

After the inspection, the CQC rated the provider as ‘requires improvement’ overall, stating specific improvements should be made to the safety and leadership of the services provided.

The report said: “Care and support was not always provided according to people's individual needs and wishes. 

“There had been some instances where staff had not always respected people's privacy and dignity.”

Though the report stated that the provider had taken corrective action to prevent such instances re-occurring.

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The report also stated that improvements were needed regarding staffing within the service and there was a key issue with the use of agency staff not supporting service users “how they wished”. 

However, the CQC  rated the service as ‘good’ for effectiveness, level of caring and responsiveness. 

Liz Donnelly, head of operations at Community Integrated Care said: “At Community Integrated Care our number one priority is to deliver safe, reliable, and high-quality services to the people we support. 

“When CQC identified issues at a recent inspection of our South West Supported Living services, we took immediate action to address their concerns, developing a robust plan for improvement to give the services focused support in the areas highlighted in the report. 

“The plan includes increased support from our Quality Team, improvements to our internal governance and incentivised recruitment initiatives to reduce agency usage at the service.

“We would like to apologise to the people we support and their loved ones for the outcome of this inspection and assure them of our absolute commitment to restoring the service to the high standards we set for ourselves. 

“We are working closely with both CQC and our local authorities to make the improvements necessary, with both encouraged by the steps we have taken so far.”