Archived: Mears Care Colchester

Updated 2 November 2017

The inspection was prompted by notification of an incident which raised potential concerns about the administration of people’s medicines. The inspection took place on 21 September 2017 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors and during the inspection we looked at the systems for managing medicines, spoke to staff involved and examined medicine administration records and auditing arrangements. We looked at one support plan, three staff recruitment files and training records. We visited one individual who was in receipt of support at home and spoke with them and their relatives and reviewed the onsite arrangements in place for the support they received and medicine administration. Following the inspection we spoke with the registered manager as they were on annual leave at the time of our site visit. At our request they provided details of the auditing arrangements in place.

Updated 2 November 2017

Mears Care Colchester was registered in April 2017 and subsequently took over the personal care delivered by another care agency. This new legal entity has not yet had a comprehensive rating inspection. This inspection was undertaken in response to concerns about medicine administration and we focused on whether the service was Safe and Well Led. This report therefore only provides information on our findings in relation to these areas. A further comprehensive inspection will be undertaken at a later date.

This inspection was unannounced and the registered manager was not available on the day of the inspection as they were on annual leave. We subsequently asked them to provide information to us. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager of this service was also registered as manager of another of the provider’s services.

We had been advised that there had been medicine errors which had resulted in an individual being admitted to hospital and staff suspended from administering medicines to people. The errors had the potential to result in serious harm to people’s wellbeing.

We found that the systems that were in place to manage medicines were not working effectively. The agency were not always following their own policy and procedures. Risks were not being identified and managed.

Audits were undertaken but were not robust and did not drive improvement.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.