A homecare agency where staff did not understand the words “bruise or “infection” has been forced to shut down.

The health watchdog found people’s experiences of Hands of Compassion Care Ltd were directly impacted by “widespread and significant shortfalls”.

The care provider, which operated from Henley Close, Chatham, and provided personal care to people living in their own houses and flats had been threatened with closure following an inspection last year.

A report was published last month by the health watchdog Care Quality Commission (CQC) detailing its full findings in which it slammed the business for failing to provide consistent, timely care and support.

In particular, people under its care were found not to have had a regular carer and some staff were task focused, only providing 14 or 16 minutes of support during a 30 minute call.

One worker was discovered to not have sufficient understanding of English to demonstrate they understood the signs of abuse or how to seek external support, not even understanding the word “bruise”.

Staff were also found not to understood how to identify and respond to the signs of potential abuse.

Despite being given notice of the inspection, it was found there was insufficient instructions on care plans with regards to medication such as staff not being shown where to apply certain creams and the names of the creams not being mentioned in the notes.

Some of the patients had diabetes yet the report noted staff “were not always guided about how to recognise and what action to take if someone had too much or too little sugar in their body”.

For one person the staff were guided to “look for signs of depression at each visit” but were given no guidance about how to recognise when a person was depressed or what to do or if any professional advice needed to be sought.

Whilst some of the people under the service’s care were fitted with catheters or stomas, the risks of infection or blockage had not been identified to staff including the knowledge that one person's catheter “does not always let the urine flow” and that the tube needed to be pulled and straightened when this person went to bed to avoid the risk of kinks.

This guidance had not been shared with staff and was not in the risk assessment or care plan.

‘Infection. What is an infection? Is it Covid?’

When asked about the signs of infections in relation to catheter care one staff member said: "Infection. What is an infection? Is it Covid?" as they did not have sufficient use of English to understand basic questions about potential risks.

There were no regular checks of equipment to make sure it was “safe to use and fit for purpose”.

The report concluded there was little evidence of accident or incidents being investigated thoroughly as in one case a person had fallen whilst about to use their stair lift but there was no investigation into the cause of the fall such as if there was uneven flooring, if suitable footwear had been worn, or if they were using their walking aid.

Another person had been found on the floor by a staff member, with the cause of the fall being identified as the person “endeavouring to be independent”.

The response was to advise the family to speak to them about “ceasing to be independent”.

The care agency, which provided personal care to adults living in their own homes, including older people and people with dementia, was looking after eight people at the time of its most recent inspection which started on September 4 and lasted two weeks.

The agency was inspected for the first time in January 2020 and put into special measures after it was found to have breached various practice rules within its first year of operating.

In November of the same year, a report said improvements had been made so it was taken out of special measures and had its rating changed to "requires improvement”.

It was then inspected in July 2022 to check progress of the action plan which the providers had implemented to improve care services.

But in a later report it was again rated “inadequate” and issued with two warning notices.

Another action plan had been requested by the CQC to understand what will be done to improve the standards of quality and safety.

The service was kept under review following its latest inspection to be re-inspected in six months time.

If it was still rated "inadequate", inspectors threatened to begin the process of closing down the service.

CQC later took enforcement action which was to cancel the providers’ registration - essentially closing them down so they can no longer operate.

The service was “archived” by the regulator on its website on June 11. It means it can no longer provide health and adult social care services and it would be a criminal offence to do so.