A CARE agency has been forced to close after it ‘continued to breach regulations’ which put people ‘at risk of serious harm’.

Tender-Hearted Care, a Ferndown based domiciliary care agency for adults, can no longer operate having been de-registered with Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The latest inspection of the agency revealed that service users had gone without medication for weeks, and were not supported to have ‘maximum control of their lives’.

CQC carried out a targeted inspection of Tender-Hearted Care on June 1, 2023, to follow up previously flagged regulation breaches and a warning notice it served after the provider ‘failed to ensure good governance’.

Following the inspection, CQC served a notice of proposal to cancel Tender-Hearted Care’s registration, and legal processes related to enforcement action commenced.

A year later, the service has been archived from the CQC website and its damning inspection report has been made public.

Inspectors found ‘not enough improvements' were made by the service, and reported it ‘continued to be in breach of regulations’.

They wrote in their report: “Governance systems had not always identified when people's health, safety and well-being were at risk and people had been placed at risk of significant harm.

“People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

“Medicines were not always managed safely. When people had missed medicines, the service had not always reported this to the local safeguarding team and had not instructed staff to monitor the person for any signs or symptoms they may be unwell.

“We identified one person did not have their antipsychotic medicine for seven days and another person did not have their antidepressant medicine for 14 days.

"This meant their prescribed medicine had stopped suddenly and had put them at risk of complications to their health and well-being.”

Inspectors reported in a previous inspection, one person had CCTV in operation at their home, but Tender-Hearted Care had not ‘sought their consent or assessed their mental capacity to consent’ to this.

The inspectors said the person's capacity had still not been assessed when they returned in June 2023.

As detailed in the report, Tender-Hearted Care was found to be in breach of the following regulations:

  • Regulation 15 Registration Regulations 2009 Notifications as it failed to notify CQC of changes.
  • Regulation 18 Registration Regulations 2009 as it failed to notify CQC of notifiable incidents as part of their regulatory requirements
  • Regulation 11 HSCA RA Regulations 2014 as it had not always ensured care and treatment was provided with the consent of the relevant person and staff had not always acted in accordance with the requirements of the mental capacity act 2005 and associated code of practice
  • Regulation 12 HSCA RA Regulations 2014 as medicines were not always managed safely
  • Regulation 13 HSCA RA Regulations 2014 as it had not always informed the local safeguarding team of incidents where people had been placed at risk of harm
  • Regulation 17 HSCA RA Regulations 2014 as it failed to improve and establish and operate robust systems and processes to ensure robust governance and oversight of the service
  • Regulation 7 HSCA RA Regulations 2014 as the registered manager did not demonstrate that they had appropriate knowledge of applicable legislation and failed to take action on set requirements

The Daily Echo has contacted Tender-Hearted Care for a comment.