Adopt Healthcare Harehills: Leeds care provider rated inadequate as CQC criticises lack of risk assessments

Adopt Healthcare, which is based in Harehills, was criticised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for not having risk assessments in place or managing medicines safely, among other concerns.

But the company's owner pointed out this week that there have been no complaints in the three years it has been running. They also said that changes have been made as a result of the inspection.

Staff at Adopt Healthcare provide care for people in their own homes, helping with tasks including personal hygiene and eating. At the time of the inspection in June, three people were being supported.

The CQC looks at five areas when it conducts inspections: safety, effectiveness, whether the service is caring, whether it is responsive, and whether it is well-led.

All were found to be inadequate, with the exception of whether the service is caring, which was found to require improvement.

A report from the commission said that people were not safe and were at risk of avoidable harm. This predominantly came from the provider not having risk assessments in place.

The report said: "One person had complex health needs affecting their mobility. There were no risk assessments in place to manage mobility risks despite this person falling multiple times since receiving care by the service."

It added: "The provider did not have systems in place for learning lessons when things went wrong. Accidents and incidents were recorded but were not reviewed or analysed for patterns or trends."

Care records with up-to-date information about people's needs were also found not to be in place.

The report said that medicines were not used safely, with the provider lacking systems for recording what medication had been administered and at what times.

It said: "One person was in receipt of 'as and when' required (PRN) medication. This medication can only be given every 4-6 hours up to a maximum of 4 times in 24 hours.

"The provider did not have a PRN protocol in place for staff to follow and no process to record the time the medication was given to avoid overdosing."

However, it added that no evidence had been found to suggest people had been harmed because of this.

In addition to those concerns, the provider's recruitment process was scrutinised. Staff were found to have been employed despite only providing one character reference, with checks into staff's employment history not completed - although the provider did conduct Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

In contrast to the concerns, the report explained that staff had said they did receive safeguarding training, and that relatives were complimentary of the service in a number of areas.

The report added: "They told us their family members were well cared for and the staff were caring."

Responding to the concerns raised, a spokesperson for Adopt Healthcare said: "The CQC inspected our service in June 2023 and observed there were shortfalls in our documentation.

"We have put in place most of the documents the inspector said were not robust. We have equally put an action plan in place on how to implement and improve our services further. We are working with other collaborative partners to ensure we meet the CQC standard in totality.

"However, our service users and their families are happy with our care delivery. In addition, we have not had any safeguarding issues for the three years we have been in operation, no queries from the local authority and no complaints from our service users.

"Our position presently is that there is no cause for alarm meaning that we are working with the CQC as the regulators in ensuring that we improve our rating in our next inspection."