Care agency ordered to improve

Ashwood Care, which is based at Phoenix House at Golborne Enterprise Park, was given a rating of "requires improvement" after a visit by healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The agency provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community and specialist homes.

It also offers a service to older adults, younger adults and people with dementia, mental health conditions, sensory impairments and physical disabilities.

The announced inspection, which was carried out from July 24 to 26, scored its safety and leadership in the area of "requires improvement".

There were two breaches of regulation found in the inspection in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance

The report said: "Medicines were not consistently administered in a safe way.

"Some medication administration records (MAR's) had no dates recorded on them.

"One person had missed a supplement for one week, another person's medicine had been started but had ran out.

"Although medicines were audited and staff were subject to observations of practice and spot checks these interventions had failed to identify the issues we found during the inspection regarding the safe management of medicines."

CQC inspectors ranked the agency's effectiveness, its ability to be caring and its responsiveness as "good".

The report added: "People who used the service and their relatives told us they felt safe receiving support from Ashwood Care and staff understood the principles of keeping people safe.

"People told us they considered staff to be knowledgeable and skilled in meeting their needs and confirmed the care workers and other staff they met were competent.

"Most people we spoke with told us staff respected their privacy and dignity and felt they encouraged them to be as independent as possible.

"The staff we spoke with spoke positively about how the service was run."

Ashwood Care did not want to comment on the findings in the CQC report.