Premier Care - Bradford is branded inadequate and placed in special measures

The health watchdog visited Premier Care - Bradford, which has its base at Commercial Street, Shipley, over six days in July, judging it to be inadequate overall - including in the areas of safety, responsiveness and leadership.

It received the 'requires improvement' rating in the 'is the service effective?' and 'is the service caring?' questions.

The service provides personal care to adults and older people living in their own homes in the community.

While the CQC report outlined a number of concerns, Premier Care has slammed the report and says it will look to challenge it in the hope of a fresh inspection being carried out.

Inspectors from the CQC said: “Safe staff recruitment procedures were in place, however, some of the things people told us led us to question the suitability of staff who were appointed.

“Most of the people we spoke with were not satisfied with the service they were receiving.”

Their report said that people who use the service described some staff as “lazy”.

Inspectors said people were not kept safe from abuse and improper treatment.

A comment from one relative who said they didn’t feel safe with the company was highlighted.

The CQC also said safeguarding procedures were not being followed and they had made seven referrals following the inspection.

Concern was also raised about male carers being sent when female carers had been requested.

Premier Care has hit back at the report and says it does not accept that the report is “accurate or fair”.

A spokeperson said: “We are challenging the report in the expectation that it will be withdrawn. We are making a request for a rating review, which is a CQC process.”

They said the original inspection was "flawed".

"We are also mounting a legal challenge to the report, which we hope will result in the report being withdrawn and ideally a fresh inspection," said the spokesperson.

"Premier Care in Bradford have worked hard in close collaboration with Bradford Council to improve and maintain high standards.

"We have acknowledged there were some problems earlier in the year, but these have been largely rectified. We are very happy to work with both the Council and CQC to address any outstanding issues.

"We entirely dispute the overall rating in the CQC report and are confident that our challenges will be successful."

The agency has also sought to clarify some of the comments made within the report.

In response to concerns over the suitability of staff, the agency said the comment is made in the report summary, but is not supported by evidence in the main report.

It has also also criticised comments about people's satisfaction with the service.

The spokesperson said: "The report shows the inspectors spoke to five service users and six relatives. At the date of the inspection we had 101 service users, so the inspectors did not speak to a representative sample. In the week of the inspection we were delivering 2,125 care visits."

The agency added that comments about staff members being "lazy" were the opinions of a "small minority of service users".

It said staff are trained in safeguarding and in caring for vulnerable adults and while the lead inspector made some referrals, the Council had, in most cases, already been informed.

And addressing the issue of male carers being sent when female carers had been requested, the agency said its policy is to "meet people's preferences as far as possible".

The spokesperson said: "Sometimes situations arise where that cannot be done, but when service users and/or relatives contact us we do our best to accommodate their wishes."

Services placed in special measures are kept under review and inspected again within six months.

If not enough improvement is made within the timeframe, so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, the watchdog will take action in line with its enforcement procedures.