01.04.19
North Tyneside care provider stripped of registration by CQC after police prompted investigation
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has taken enforcement action and cancelled the registration of a special measures home care provider in North Tyneside following a tip-off from a police investigation.
Inspectors at Allcare Community Services found several breaches of regulation including poor staff recruitment and training, and failure to actively protect people against the risk of harm.
The care agency in Wallsend, North Tyneside provided personal care to predominantly older patients in their own homes. The CQC said it was “left with no choice but to seek the removal of the provider’s registration,” meaning it can no longer legally operate the service.
Sue Howard, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector of adult social care, said the provider had “continued to ignore our concerns” despite the service being placed into special measures and restrictions being imposed.
She said: “Having found continued areas of poor care and given no credible assurance that the quality of the care would improve we were left no option but to seek the removal of the provider’s registration.
The provider had been warned following an inspection in May 2018, which was prompted by information shared by the local police, that if immediate action was not made over the next six months then the service would have its registration cancelled.
Following this inspection, the CQC took urgent enforcement action, and found that the concerns were so serious inspectors began the process to cancel the provider’s registration early.
Inspectors returned to the service in August and found that many of the concerns, including a lack of a registered manager and staff recruitment, had not been addressed.
The provider was also issued with two fixed penalty notices totalling £2,500 because it had failed to inform the CQC of notifiable deaths and serious incidents.
The provider appealed against the CQC’s decision to close the service but a Care Standards Tribunal ruled in favour of the CQC last week, and the service is now no longer CQC registered.