A Liverpool rehabilitation centre remains in special measures weeks after its boss was disqualified from being a company director.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has confirmed We Can Recover CIC remains inadequate following an inspection carried out in February. At that time the CQC suspended its registration to keep people safe from harm.
We Can Recover CIC is a private company which provides inpatient care and detoxification for up to 24 people with addictions such as alcohol or drugs.
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The company which runs the We Do Recover CIC facility, based in Kremlin Drive, was fined a total of £45,000 at Liverpool Magistrates Court and ordered to pay £15,000 costs after being found to be operating unlawfully without CQC registration.
The director of the service, Fenella Price was given a community order for 12 months to complete 200 hours unpaid work within this timeframe and ordered to pay £500 costs and £90 victim surcharge.
Price was also disqualified from being a director of a company for three years, effective from June 14 this year.
Following the latest inspection, as well as being rated inadequate overall, the service was also rated inadequate for being safe and well-led. Effective, caring and responsive have not been inspected, therefore remain unrated. Karen Knapton, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said: “When we inspected We Can Recover CIC, whilst we saw some areas where improvements had been made, managers hadn’t acted fully on the serious issues identified in the suspension notice and there were continued safety concerns.
“At the last inspection we found that leaders had a poor understanding of the service, and this continued to be the case. For example, inspectors had to prompt leaders to create an on-call system to support staff who were carrying out shifts on their own in case something went wrong, or they needed advice.
“We previously told leaders that there weren’t enough experienced nursing and medical staff to deliver high quality, safe care to people. On this inspection we saw that managers had offered positions to four registered nurses but most lacked previous experience in substance misuse which is fundamental to the role.
“However, we saw improvements had been made regarding staff training with the introduction of a new record system which detailed existing and recently appointed staff undertaking training around safeguarding, medicines management and basic lifesaving. We have fed back our concerns to the provider and will continue to monitor the service closely.
“We will inspect again and expect to see further improvements as people deserve a much higher and safer standard of care, and we won’t hesitate to take further enforcement action if necessary to keep people safe.” Findings from the inspection included clinic rooms not being fully equipped, an unsafe admissions process and a lack of clarity around clinical oversight.
The CQC noted however the provider had purchased new equipment for the clinic room and had reviewed their arrangements for emergency medicines.
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