Care at home provider in Peterborough is found to be in need of improvement by health regulator

A care at home provider in Peterborough has been found to be in need of improvement after an inspection by health officials.

My Homecare Peterborough, in Lincoln Road, which provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats, has been criticised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about safety issues and leadership.

Now an action plan is being prepared in order to tackle the concerns raised during an inspection between January 17 and January 20 this year.

According to a report released by the CQC, inspectors found that not all medicines administration records had been completed correctly.

The report states: “This meant it would not be easy to identify who administered the medicine and created a risk as to whether the medicine had been administered or not.”

Inspectors also found there had been a lack of protocols about when medicine should be administered, including what involvement the person had, the maximum dose and when to contact a health

professional.

The report stated: “This put people at risk of not receiving the medicine as prescribed, or being given too much.

“Although staff were trained and had competency checks, we recommend the provider reviews this in line with the concerns found.”

In relation to the My Homecare being well led, inspectors found that quality and assurance polices and processes were not effective and that the recruitment policy had not been recorded as being reviewed since July 2021, which created a risk that staff and guidance for recruitment could be out of date.

They also found that monitoring systems relating to records did not effectively identify a lack of sufficient detail to guide staff to provide care and how and when to administer medicines and manage risks associated with people's safety.

Also, the records did not contain adequate information to guide other staff about care and medicines should a regular staff member become ill at short notice.

The report states: “We found no evidence that people had been harmed. However, systems were not robust enough to demonstrate management oversight and support continuous improvement of the service.”

My Homecare Peterborough has been approached for a response.