Adopt Healthcare: Care service in Harehills, Leeds, put under special measures after 'inadequate' rating by CQC

Adopt Healthcare, a domiciliary care service on Harehills Lane in Harehills, was rated as “inadequate” following an inspection in June by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The unannounced inspection was prompted by a review of the information the CQC held about the service and found “significant shortfalls” in leadership and a case where the service was “doing nothing” to prevent one patient with complex health needs from falling.

Adopt Healthcare has been approached for a comment.

Adopt Healthcare provides personal care and support for people in their own homes. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting three people.

Following this inspection, the service was rated “inadequate” overall after receiving an “inadequate “rating for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led and as “requires improvement” for being caring. This was the first time the service had been rated.

The service is now in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made.

Sheila Grant, CQC deputy director of operations in the North, said: “When we inspected Adopt Healthcare, we found significant shortfalls by the leadership team, and the culture they’d created didn’t ensure the delivery of high-quality care.

“We found appropriate risk assessments weren’t in place to keep people safe. For example, someone with complex health needs which affected their mobility and had fallen multiple times, didn’t have one in place, meaning the service was doing nothing to prevent them from having another fall, this is totally unacceptable.

“Additionally, we found staff weren’t managing and recording people’s medicine intake safely. There was no system in place for staff to follow to record the time the medication was given, this left people using the service vulnerable to potential medication errors.”

She said that the findings had been reported to Adopt Healthcare and they had been told they were under special measures “so we can monitor them closely to keep people safe during this time”.

She said: “If sufficient progress has not been made, we will not hesitate to take further action to ensure people’s safety and well-being.”

During the visit inspectors also found that the recruitment process was not safe, there was no evidence of people’s consent or involvement in care decisions and training was not provided on equality and diversity or promoting privacy and dignity.

The report also found:

• People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.

• Staff knew people well but could not support them based on their needs as no assessments had been completed by the provider and no care plans were available for staff.

• There was no evidence of involvement from other professionals vital to people’s care and treatment.

However, the inspectors did find that staff followed good infection control practices including wearing personal protective equipment when supporting people and relatives told inspectors that staff were caring and treat people with kindness. Staff also said that the registered manager was approachable and supportive.

The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.