Staff ended up working non-stop on 12-hour or multiple shifts with no formal breaks at a home care agency, inspectors have revealed.

People were also not always protected from the risk of abuse, and their medicines were not always managed safely by the Gillingham Road home care agency, according to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) latest report.

The damning verdict has come from health watchdog inspectors who have now put the home care service into special measures.

A manager at the company which runs the service says improvements have been implemented, adding: “We work hard to ensure our clients and staff are safe.”

In a report published last week (February 26), the CQC has rated the Gillingham Road home care agency, which is based in the town’s High Street, as “inadequate” in all five categories organisations are judged on - safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness and leadership - giving it an overall rating of “inadequate” too.

The CQC has now imposed conditions on its registration to keep people safe.

After an assessment on January 11, inspectors for the health watchdog found that staff were not given formal breaks despite working 12-hour shifts as well as multiple shifts, and felt that this could affect their quality of care.

They also found that leaders did not always protect people from the risk of abuse and staff did not always manage people's medicines in a safe way.

Gillingham Road is a home care agency and supported living service run by Eunistar Health Consultant UK Limited. It provides personal care to older people, as well as those with autism or a learning disability.

During the inspection, the CQC found eight breaches of regulations in relation to dignity and respect, person-centred care, people’s capacity to consent and safeguarding.

This was also the case when it came to safe care and treatment, staffing, recruitment processes and how the service was being managed.

Now the service’s overall rating has dropped from “requires improvement” in a previous CQC-published report of July 2022 to “inadequate”, as have its ratings for being safe and well-led. Effectiveness, care and responsiveness have all dropped from “good” three years ago to “inadequate” now.

Putting the agency into special measures means the service will be closely monitored to ensure people are safe while improvements are made.

The CQC has also imposed conditions on registration, so the firm has to ask inspectors for permission before providing care to people.

Serena Coleman, CQC deputy director for Kent and Sussex, said: “It was concerning to find a service where care wasn’t always personalised to meet people’s needs and wishes.

“This meant they didn’t have any independence, or choice and control of their lives. This was particularly poor for autistic people and people with a learning disability, which was unacceptable.

“Risks associated with people’s physical health care weren’t managed in a safe way. For example, where people had catheters fitted, there was no risk assessment to help staff identify issues or know when to seek further support, such as if the person had an infection.

“Leaders also didn’t support staff with enough guidance in behaviour support plans. This would be so they knew how to support people when they were distressed or had lapses in their mental health. This placed the person and staff at risk of harm.

“We were not assured that people were safe or protected from the risk of abuse and neglect. “There was evidence someone wanted to harm themselves, however this hadn’t been investigated by staff, or reported to the local authority safeguarding team.”

Inspectors also found that people were not always supported to take part in activities that were meaningful to them and risks associated with people’s care were not always being managed in a safe way.

Also, incidents were not being reported or investigated to reduce the risk of re-occurrence and there were not enough qualified staff to ensure people’s safety, the report said.

Eunice Emeakaroha, manager at Eunistar, told KentOnline: “This report does not reflect our homecare service. We have run our company for many years and we know what to expect from a CQC inspection. That is what we are doing.

“We were rated ‘requires improvement’ on only two areas during their last visit in 2022, a few months after starting personal care.

“Our company does yearly auditing and inspection, and we were rated ‘good’ by our independent auditors in April 2024 while using the same CQC template and method of assessment.”

Ms Emeakaroha said that after this year’s inspection, an action plan for improvement was immediately sent to the CQC and implemented. Evidence of the action taken was sent to the CQC.

Further evidence, such as documents dealing with recommended training of staff, were also promptly sent, Ms Emeakaroha added.

She concluded: “I feel very bad for the outcome because we work hard to ensure our clients and staff are safe.

“This is while ensuring a person-centered approach to caring for our clients is our utmost priority. We also did our best to submit all requested documents, hoping to get a recommendation and room for improvement, which I believe we deserved.”