A HEALTHCARE provider based in Basingstoke has shut down after being told the people in its care are “at risk”.

Supreme Healthcare Services was visited by the Care Quality Commission in April, and a report published on June 10, said four out of five areas inspected were “inadequate”.

One area, regarding whether the service is caring, was judged to “require improvement”.

The service, based at Basepoint Enterprise Centre, in Stroudley Road, provides care and support to people who live in their own homes, and at the time of the inspection was providing personal care to 38 people. There was no registered manager in place at the time.

The report said: “People’s safety had been compromised in a number of areas.

This included being exposed to avoidable physical harm and the unsafe management of people’s medicines.”

It added: “Care workers did not always demonstrate that they had the required knowledge to be able to safeguard people and report any concerns to the relevant safeguarding authority.”

The CQC reported that there were “insufficient staffing levels to ensure that people’s needs were being met safely” and inspectors also found that people were put at risk because risk assessments were not in place regarding care workers with criminal histories.

One person had suffered thefts of over £300 in cash from their home address.

The report said: “Medicines were not always being provided to people by care workers in the way they were prescribed or wanted.”

Inspectors found that a relative, with no formal training, had assisted in the delivery of care because only one care worker had arrived.

The report said: “This had left the person vulnerable to the risk of receiving unsafe treatment. This had also caused emotional distress to both the person and their relative.”

The CQC found there were insufficient care workers to keep people safe, and people told inspectors that care workers were often late or missed visits completely.

When asked about staffing levels people said: “They are late at least once a month every month,” and “they do not turn up two or three times a month.”

Complaints were made to the local authority about this, and the provider assured them that staff would be sought from other agencies, however this failed to happen.

One relative said their family member had been without food for 12 to 14 hours because care workers had been unable to attend their appointment.

A number of continued breaches of the Health and Social Care Act Regulations 2014 were found, and the CQC was going to submit an application to cancel the registration to prevent the provider from delivering care from Basingstoke.

However, after the inspection the provider voluntarily submitted an application to remove Supreme Healthcare Services (Basingstoke) from their registration.

Innocent Mukarati, managing director of Supreme Healthcare Services, which is based in Woking, said the criticisms in the report were because of a period of two weeks when numerous staff walked out to take jobs elsewhere.

He failed to accept that people had experienced problems with their care over several months, and claimed the report was “inaccurate”. Asked what had happened to people being cared for by Supreme Healthcare Services, he said one of the other branches had taken over their care.