A social care agency has been put into "special measures" after being given the lowest possible rating by the healthcare watchdog.

Revelation Social Care Ltd, based at Warth Business Centre in Bury, was inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in April and its overall score was marked down from "good" to "inadequate".

At the time of inspection, there were 32 people using the service, which provides care to people living in their own houses. Users are helped with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating as well as being given medicines and treatments.

The regulator inspected the agency after it "received concerns in relation to the management and conduct of the service, safeguarding, staff training and development and safe care and treatment, particularly in relation to risk management".

Three areas, whether it is safe, effective and well-led, were then examined.

Following the inspection, the provider's safety and leadership were categorised as "inadequate" while its effectiveness was ranked as "requires improvement".  Read more: Plans for 84 homes at Seedfield Resource Centre site to be debated The CQC report stated that "people were not safe and were at risk of avoidable harm".

The report said: “We looked at records in relation to areas of potential risk.

“Specific areas of concern, such as behaviours that challenge and self-harm had not been thoroughly assessed and planned to provide clear guidance for staff about the way support should be provided to help keep people safe.

“Staff spoken with felt peoples risk assessments and plans could be improved."

Staff recruitment procedures were not in place and relevant checks not being made prior to staff starting work like written references and DBS checks, the report also found.

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The inspection also said that the management and administration of people’s medicines were not safe, and staff had only completed medical training through an e-learning programme.

The report said: “Staff members felt further in-depth training was required due to complex needs of some people.

“Staff told us the majority of training was provided through online training.

“Training records showed a number of staff had completed multiple courses in one day.

“This did not demonstrate training was appropriately planned to promote staff learning.”

But feedback from patients and their families was very positive about care staff with comments such as they "couldn’t ask for a better team" and "I can't praise them enough".

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"There were widespread and significant shortfalls in service leadership", according to the report.

The service did not have systems in place to monitor and review the service, and the "office environment was disorganised and did not provide an effective working environment", according to the report.

But there were positive comments about the registered manager and the service.

The report said: “People and their family members spoke positively about the care and support provided.

“We were told, "we don't see [registered manager] often, but we can call her. Any issues she will sort things" and "communication with the office is fine.”

The two other areas the service has been rated on, its responsiveness and whether it is caring, have previously scored "good" and were not ranked in this inspection. 

After being put into "special measures", the service will be re-inspected in six months to check for significant improvements.

In response to the report, a service spokesperson said: "We are working on the action plans we were given. 

"We are working hard to bring ourselves back up to where we were before."

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