North London home care provider in 'special measures' due to safety breach

A domiciliary care service in Haringey has been placed in ‘special measures’ by the Care Quality Commission due to a safety breach.

Focus Learning was inspected in February 2020 just prior to lockdown and had formerly been rated ‘requires improvement’ in 2019.

It has now been rated ‘inadequate’ and placed in ‘special measures’ meaning the CQC will keep the service under review and, if it does not cancel the provider's registration, it will re-inspect within six months to check for significant improvements.

CQC inspectors found that people who were at risk of falls did not have appropriate risk assessments to help reduce the likelihood of falls. In addition those needing two care workers were found to be at risk of harm as they were not being supported by two care workers.

Neil Cox, acting head of inspection for Adult Social Care in London said: “We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection.”

He added: “We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.

“We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, staffing, need for consent, assessing people's needs, complaints, good governance and notification of death of a service user. We will closely monitor the service to ensure improvements are made quickly and will take further action should the improvements not be made.”

Feedback was mixed about how caring the service was. One person and their relative thought the manager was caring. Another relative did not have a good experience with the management of the service.

Inspectors found the manager did not have systems in place to show how they learned from accidents or incidents and how to prevent them in the future.

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