9 January 2024
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Lotus care is a domiciliary care service providing care and support to adults and older people in their own homes. The service supports people with physical disabilities and mental health needs. At the time of our inspection there were 82 people using the service.
Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.
People's experience of using this service and what we found
During this inspection, we found inconsistency in how the provider was following and applying their recruitment policy. People and staff raised concerns regarding the training staff received. We made a recommendation in relation to training. Staff did not feel supported by the management and there was a lack of supervisions completed with staff.
Staff and people did not feel their concerns were listened to or acted upon. Staff told us they did not think they always had enough time to travel between care visits, however people and relatives did not raise concerns in this area. We reviewed evidence confirming accidents and incidents were reviewed and lessons learnt shared with staff.
Care plans lacked detail around how best to support people. We made a recommendation in relation to care plans and risk assessments. Staff also felt changes to people’s needs were not communicated to the staff team promptly. Medication times were not being logged so it was not clear if a there was a sufficient gap between doses.
The quality assurance processes failed to identify concerns relating to medication, care plans, recruitment, complaints and supervisions. We found no evidence the service had sought feedback from people, staff or relatives.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 1 April 2021).
Why we inspected
We inspected this service due to concerns we had received regarding the recruitment of staff and the quality of care provided. We completed a focused inspection of the key questions safe and well-led. For those key questions not inspected, we used the rating awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Lotus care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We have identified a breach in relation to good governance at this inspection.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.