Pringles Care Services - Central improved from Requires Improvement to Good following a focused inspection of safe, responsive and well-led key questions, having addressed prior breaches of Regulations 12 and 17. The service demonstrated effective risk management, medicines safety, personalised care planning and governance, with only minor issues around visit punctuality communication and complaints consistency.
Concerns (4)
minorMissed or late visits: “Sometimes phone to let me know if the carers are running late" and "Sometimes [the care worker] lets me know and sometimes [the care worker] doesn't.”
minor
Complaints handling
: “I have phoned them to complain about the varying times of the visit and often what happens is that it improves for two or three days and then it goes back to being either early or late.”
minorCare planning: “We saw one person's plan was not always clear on when their relative administered pain-relief medicine to them and not staff.”
minorCommunication with families: “People we spoke with said they could contact the agency when they needed to, but they were not clear who the registered manager was.”
Strengths
· Risks to people's safety were assessed and managed with detailed care and risk management plans covering medical conditions, falls, mobility, skin integrity, nutrition and hydration.
· Staff supported people with medicines safely, including monthly MAR audits and competency assessments.
· People were usually visited by the same care workers at regular times, providing continuity of care.
· A new strengths-based approach tool was introduced to enable personalised care reviews with people.
· Care plans included information about ethnicity, religion, sexuality and preferred gender of carer, supporting cultural competency.
Focused inspection downgraded Pringles Care Services - Central from Good to Requires improvement, with breaches of Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (good governance) due to inconsistent risk assessments, infection control failings, poor electronic call monitoring use, and inadequate records. Quality monitoring systems were not effective in identifying or addressing the issues found, though recruitment, safeguarding engagement and partnership working remained positive.
Concerns (7)
criticalCare planning: “The moving and handling risk assessments of this support for some people did not always clearly indicate how staff should support the people safely or what equipment they should use”
criticalInfection control: “Government guidance had required homecare staff to complete a test each day before they began their care visits... the provider had not ensured that testing had been consistently implemented”
criticalGovernance: “systems were either not in place or robust enough to demonstrate safety, quality and the management of service records were effectively managed. This placed people at risk of harm.”
criticalRecord keeping: “the registered manager had not always ensured they maintained accurate, complete and contemporaneous records of people's care and the management of the service”
moderateMissed or late visits: “staff could not account for why a care worker had arrived three hours late for a person's scheduled care visit. They could also not demonstrate they had acted to ensure the person was safe”
moderateMedication management: “Their care plan did not always provide clear direction for staff on how medicines needed to be prepared for this type of administration.”
moderateOther: “Care staff were not completing clear financial transaction records when they handled the person's money and the provider could not demonstrate they regularly audited this support.”
Strengths
· Enough staff deployed and people generally visited by the same familiar care workers
· Robust recruitment checks to ensure only fit and proper applicants were employed
· Safeguarding policies in place and staff trained; engagement with statutory agencies on concerns
· Partnership working with GPs, social workers and other agencies for joined-up care
· Staff supplied with sufficient PPE; people confirmed staff wore PPE appropriately
Quality-Statement breakdown (10)
safe: Assessing risk, safety monitoring and management, Preventing and controlling infectionRequires improvement
safe: Staffing and recruitmentRequires improvement
safe: Using medicines safelyRequires improvement
safe: Systems and processes to safeguard people from the risk from abuseRequires improvement
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongRequires improvement
well-led: Managers and staff being clear about their roles, and understanding quality performance, risks and regulatory requirementsRequires improvement
well-led: Promoting a positive culture that is person-centred, open, inclusive and empoweringRequires improvement