Northampton care agency making necessary improvements highlighted by CQC after 'difficult' period

A Northampton company which provides carers for people in their homes insists it is making improvements after being criticised by the health watchdog.

Harmony Homecare was rated as 'requires improvement' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following an inspection of part of the service in September, made public last week.

A spokesperson for the firm, based on Birchfield Road East, said the necessary changes had been made but added all clients had received the required care during a tough period.

"The past couple of months have been somewhat difficult for us all. Our carers have worked tirelessly to keep everyone safe," they told the Chronicle & Echo.

"We have had no Covid cases within our organisation and have always been supplied with sufficient PPE.

"They have all worked together extremely well and gone above and beyond throughout. All of our clients received the care required, nobody was ever missed."

Harmony Homecare was partly inspected by the CQC on September 9, to follow-up on issues found during a previous visit in 2019.

The inspector raised concerns about its management of medicines, risk assessments and staff's access to the latest government guidance on coronavirus in their report published on October 28.

"People were not consistently supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not consistently support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support consistently support this practice," the report reads.

"The provider had in some cases made generic decisions in people’s best interest without consulting them on their preference."

However, the CQC did praise the quality of care and received positive feedback from employees and clients.

The Harmony Homecare spokesperson said updates have been made to its software, including an online system for documenting when medication is administered and a real-time system showing where the carers are and for how long.

"We have a new policy system which is an online portal where the policies are updated online as and when required so they are all kept updated," they added.

"We have had no incidents or complaints from any of our clients. all of which are happy with the care that they receive."