Home care service rated ‘inadequate’ by inspectors a year after paying £900,000

HOME care service, which previously paid out around £1 million in compensation for missed visits, has come under fire again.

Southend-based Ashley Care was rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following an inspection in October last year.

In a report published last week, CQC inspectors found the service, which provided support to 142 people in their homes, was suffering from staff shortages and staff were frequently late. did.

In July last year, the service coughed up £900,000 after the then 63-year-old suffered a subsequent stroke and missed 142 absences in 12 weeks.

The grandfather, whose anonymity was granted by the court, was supposed to be visited regularly, but not once in the four days before his stroke.

Now the Clarence Street-based service has come under fire again for missed calls.

“People told us that Ashley Care did not always contact them when staff were delayed or when there was a change in caregivers,” the report said.

One relative told inspectors: “They should be called Ashley Don’t Care. We don’t have the same staff and they don’t come at the same time.”

A service user claimed that he had experienced many missed calls.

Staff CQC spoke to reported that calls were missed, delayed, or did not last within the allotted time because there were too many calls scheduled for the number of available staff. did.

One staff member said: “We’re so short-staffed that people are showing up late and getting missed calls… [office] They tend to provide us with an excessive amount of customers. ”

Viv Storey, managing director of Ashley Care, said: “Due to the current strain on home care, unfortunately we and most providers are unable to offer all of our customers their preferred visit times. “If we can’t, and if we can, all of our staff will only be working the following hours.” Limited time.

“Ashley Care is constantly striving to improve and we are pleased to confirm that all recently completed surveys have shown that our clients are satisfied with the attendance of their carers and the provision of care.

“There are no missed visits and we are doing our best to recruit more caregivers to accommodate requests for arrival times.”