The health watchdog has placed a care company in special measures after a damning report found that it employed untrained staff and did not properly assess people’s needs.

WiiCare was subjected to an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on January 16 and 17 and has been rated as “inadequate” in a report published last week, just months after its award-winning owner defended its services.

Entrepreneur Neil Coombs, who set up the firm in 2011 after battling redundancy and depression, refuted the results of a previous report following an inspection in September, which criticised safety and leadership.

Claiming that all issues had been resolved in the weeks following that inspection, he said back in December: “If the CQC came to inspect us today or tomorrow I’m confident we’d be rated good or outstanding.”

But the new report says WiiCare, which sends carers into people’s homes across Dartford, Gravesham, Medway, and Swanley, failed to ensure that people were kept safe and looked after effectively.

Many of the carers on its payroll had not received an appropriate level of training. There were also not enough staff to cope with the number of people in the company’s care.

Owner promises that company will improve

Speaking about the latest report, Mr Coombs admitted that WiiCare had fallen well below the standards it had set previously and said he was confident it would recover in the months ahead.

Former CQC consultants have been employed to help him get his company back on track and has reduced the number of service users to ensure a better standard of care is provided.

He said that any future expansion of the company’s care provision would be better managed to ensure that quality did not suffer.

“We know there have been issues but it’s not about running away from them, it’s about looking at them, reflecting on them, and bringing in additional experts that understand the industry,” he said.

“I am putting together an action plan to make sure the service is well led and providing a good service. WiiCare will be able to get that service back up to where it used to be.”

Mr Coombs said he was more confident of turning it around than he was after the last inspection because of the help he was getting from the former CQC consultants.

He continued: “We have to provide a good service and we have had many clients over the years who have had a fantastic service, and we should be providing that now and in the future.

“I am taking the right steps and working with the right people to make sure it happens.”
Last year Mr Coombs won the NatWest Enterprise Award at the Celebrate Success Awards.

While people inspectors spoke to were very positive about some of the regular staff, they were less confident in the ability of newer recruits.

Inspectors noted some staff had quit because of repeated wage delays, as reported by KentOnline last year.

One client told inspectors: “I don’t feel very confident that the staff know how to look after me as they have lost so many of the long standing carers and are employing new people who don’t seem to know what to do.”

Sometimes staff did not turn up for appointments, or did not stay for the amount of time they were supposed to, leaving family members having to make their own arrangements for things like cooking meals.

Eighty-two people were under WiiCare’s watch at the time of the inspection, down from 158 after Kent County Council stopped placing people under its care following the concerns raised in the previous report.

The new report stated: “The provider had reduced the numbers of people they were supporting since the last inspection which had relieved some of the pressure in some areas.

“However, we found that staff were continuing to have too many care visits to make as there were still insufficient numbers of staff available to deliver the amount of care visits required.

“Rotas were inaccurate, showing individual staff working in more than one person’s home at the same time.

“We were told, and we saw evidence to suggest that staff were regularly delivering care on their own to people who had been assessed as requiring two members of staff to support them.”

“We have to provide a good service and we have had many clients over the years who have had a fantastic service, and we should be providing that now and in the future" Neil Coombs

Staffing was said to have been so stretched that Mr Coombs, who is from Gravesend, sometimes had to drive carers to their appointments.

The report went on to criticise how medical records were filed and organised, the reporting of accidents, and that complaints were poorly managed and in some cases ignored.

None of the recommendations outlined in the previous report had been acted upon and inspectors found a total of nine breaches of the Health and Social Care Act, including a failure to carry out employment checks.

Another breach was failing to update the company’s website with the result of the previous inspection — it still stated that WiiCare is rated “good” in all areas by the CQC — but the updated rating was on display in the Rochester-based firm’s office.