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Breaking news: Council-contracted care firm warned over ‘unacceptable’ standards in Aylesbury
‘UNACCEPTABLE’ standards of care provided by a council-contracted agency in Aylesbury have been lambasted by a government watchdog.
Plan Care, which provides home care to vulnerable people in Aylesbury on behalf of Bucks County Council, has been given an official warning notice by the Care Quality Commission.
It failed to meet five of the government’s essential standards of quality and safety, covering ‘respecting and involving people’, ‘care and welfare of people’, ‘safeguarding people from abuse’, ‘assessing and monitoring service provision’ and ‘handling complaints’.
Inspectors said a high proportion of people using Plan Care, which is also known as Plan Personnel, did not receive they needed. Staff also often failed to meet appointments on time.
Their report, published on Wednesday, follows damning stories in The Bucks Herald towards the end of last year about the poor service offered by Plan Care.
Inspectors investigated the agency in November and December to check whether improvements had been made following criticisms in their previous inspection.
But Ian Biggs, deputy director of CQC in the south, said: “The standards of care that we found at Plan Personnel Aylesbury were totally unacceptable.
“While some people received good care from individual care workers, many people using the service felt that the agency was chaotic, leaving care workers unable to perform their duties to the standard required.”
He said Plan Care had now provided the CQC with an action plan to make improvements.
But he warned: “If we find that the agency is failing to provide the standard of care required, we will not hesitate to take further action to protect the safety and welfare of people.”
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Weather for Aylesbury
Wednesday 22 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 9 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 28 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South west
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JR
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 06:13 PMThis is what happens when you farm out vital services. Top managers cream off huge salaries, leaving little to pay the staff. They then bring in staff on almost minimum wages & expect them to do twice the work with little or no training or experience. Then again, why should BCC managers and councillors care? As long as they still have high paying jobs, doesn't matter what happens to the frail, vulnerable. A society can be judged on the way it treats its frail,elderly and vulnerable and this society is sinking deeper into the mire. Oh well, at least we can watch the nice, shiny new trains whizz by every couple of minutes!
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