A home care provider is in special measures after shocking timekeeping for visits to clients, with some carers arriving more than two hours late or not at all.

The damning report by the Care Quality Commission found poor administration of medicine, understaffing and poorly trained workers, at Allied Healthcare Hythe, of Red Lion Square.

The company supports 236 people in their own homes throughout Shepway and in Ashford and Canterbury.

The report said: “People’s medicines were not managed safely.

“They did not have their needs met by sufficient numbers of staff resulting in missed and late visits.

“They did not receive care and support from sufficiently competent, experienced and trained staff.”

It added: “People did not always received care and support from regular staff the were familiar with their care and support needs

“There had been a high turnover of office staff and this had impacted on the service people received and staff morale was low.”

The service was given an overall rating of “inadequate,” the lowest grade, and is therefore in special measures.

This means it will be kept under review and most likely inspected again in six months.

If there is not enough improvement by then enforcement action will be taken to prevent the provider operating this service. This could ultimately lead to cancelling the registration.

The home was branded inadequate in two of the five sub-categories, safety and leadership.

It got the second worst grading of requires improvement in effectiveness, care and responsiveness.

A total 40% of clients, 50% of relatives and 100% of professionals surveyed felt staff did not arrive on time. .

A monitoring report covering last September to November showed that clients in Hythe had an average of 27.5% of visits that were 45 minutes or more late and the worst affected area was Canterbury with 37.5%.

One relative told inspectors how they had twice recently waited two hours and so undertook the care themselves.

Other people talked about recent visits that had been between 50 minutes and 2 hours 30 minutes late.

At other times clients needing two carers were only visited by one, in one case six times in a week of 21 scheduled visits.

Inspectors found that lateness could be caused by not enough travelling time being allowed between visits.

Inspectors found that one members of office staff spent a day and evening covering visits where 46 were needed. They said this was due to staff sickness and car problems.

Records and discussions showed there was a high turnover of care staff with 19 starters and 19 leavers in six months up to February plus three more staff giving notice at the time of inspection.