A CARE agency in Padgate has been ordered to improve after an inspection.

Care at Home has been to improve by the Care Quality Commission after inspectors found three breaches of health and social care regulations.

The Padgate Lane-based service, which was rebranded from its former name of Nightingales UK earlier this year after a takeover, was visited by the CQC in May.

Inspectors found that some staff had not received the necessary support and training and noted inconsistencies in record-keeping, as well as care records that were not up to date.

‘Mixed comments’ were also received from relatives of the 151 service users concerning staff levels.

But workers treated residents in their own homes ‘with kindness and respect and supported their dignity in a sensitive manner’.

Managing director Karl Jacobie said that Care at Home had invested a quarter of a million pounds in the service and hoped to receive the top rating of outstanding at its next inspection.

He added: “We took over ownership of Nightingales nine months ago with the focus on instilling and bringing our core business values of care, dignity and integrity throughout the care that we provide – we are in a process of transformation, into which we have already invested over £250,000.

“We remain committed to our staff, our service users and the community and we will continue to strive towards an outstanding rating at our next assessment.

“It was encouraging that we retained our good rating in caring, as this is the area that most impacts our service users and reflects most on the organisation – we are clearly disappointed in the ratings for the other areas.

“However, the assessment does identify that the areas of improvement required relate predominantly to office processes, record keeping and training.

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“We believe this reflects more on the historic challenges the business has faced under its previous ownership than it does on the current team and position of the service.

“New processes and procedures have already been implemented and were already in place at the time of the assessment and although CQC acknowledged this, it was unfortunate that the timing of the assessment meant we were unable to evidence these improvements at that precise time.

“We very much look forward to our next assessment where we can evidence the improvements already made.”