ReadyCQC — A weekly field guide to CQC home-care regulation

Inspection report · 2021-01-15

Framework: KLOE · 12 pages · 82 KB · PDF

Requires improvement

safe: Requires improvementwell-led: Requires improvement

ASK Care Limited received a 'Requires Improvement' rating following a focused inspection of safe and well-led domains, with regulatory breaches identified in medicines management (Reg 12), staffing punctuality (Reg 18), and governance (Reg 17). Key failures included widespread gaps in MAR records, staff leaving visits early or arriving late, and ineffective quality assurance systems to identify and address these recurring issues.

Concerns (7)

criticalMedication management — “Out of the 19 records reviewed, we identified gaps in the medicine administration records (MARs) for five people for multiple medicines.”
criticalMedication management — “Several staff had not completed training in the safe administration of medicines in the past 12 months, nor had their competence to administer medicines assessed.”
criticalMissed or late visits — “21 people had short calls more than 10% of the time in November 2020...Ten people had calls late by more than 45 minutes more than 10% of the time in September.”
criticalGovernance — “Systems for monitoring and improving the quality and safety of care were not effective...issues had not been effectively addressed.”
moderateRecord keeping — “Important information such as the name of the prescribed medicine, the strength of the medicine, the prescribed dose and allergy status were missing from the record.”
moderateGovernance — “They did not have a robust system for auditing records of financial transactions carried out by staff on behalf of people using the service.”
moderateStaff training — “Records of training were maintained, and these showed that several staff were not up to date with medicines management training.”

Strengths

· Robust staff recruitment practices including criminal record checks, employment references, proof of identity and right to work in the UK.
· Risk assessments were in place, subject to annual review, covering medicines, personal care, skin integrity, moving and handling and communication.
· Staff understood safeguarding responsibilities and the provider had a safeguarding adults policy.
· Accidents and incidents were reviewed with follow-up actions to reduce recurrence.
· Positive open culture reported by staff and people using the service.

Inspection reports (4)