All the people who we spoke with on 27 and 28 February 2012 were dissatisfied with the service that they received from the agency. They told us that the care workers were often late, and they were never confident that the care worker would arrive to provide the care that they needed. Everyone told us that their regular care workers were very good, using terms such as 'brilliant', 'can't fault them'. One person said, 'The carers are wonderful, it's the management who don't have a clue,' and this theme was expressed my most of the people who we spoke with. Two of the 17 people who we spoke with, both of whom had only one visit a week for assistance with bathing, were happy with the care they received. But 15 people told us that the agency was not able to meet their assessed needs. Three people told us that the agency expected a relative to provide care when they were not able to provide a care worker. One relative told us that they visited their relative several times a day because the agency frequently failed to send the care workers that were required.
All the people who use the service and relatives who we spoke with on told us that they felt that the agency did not employ enough care workers to meet their needs. One person said, '.The staff come & go, we can never really get to know them well. They never have enough staff.' Everyone who we spoke with told us that there were frequent changes in the care workers allocated to them, and they never knew who was coming to provide their care.
15 of the 17 people who we spoke with said that they had raised concerns with the agency concerning missed calls and poor care, but they had either had no response, or no actions were taken to address their concerns.