Plymouth’s Derriford hospital is “unacceptable” in some areas, says report

Part of the CQC’s pledge is to make sure that, whether for hospitals, care homes or social care services, all providers receive visits from professionals who are “sector-specific” in their expertise and able to accurately assess what evidence is required in order to establish what performance rating that service should receive.

Other areas of concern raised by the CQC include problems with the capability of staff due to many being inconsistently “trained, supervised and supported”.

Doncaster domiciliary care service, 1 Diamond Jones Service has been placed in “special measures” after the Care Quality Commission rated it as being inadequate in four out of five key areas.

The care firm said it was working to address the concerns.

“It is a credit to all the staff that we found caring to be outstanding overall, but especially in maternity and gynaecology, children and young people’s services and end of life care”, he added.

“We are looking, for example, at how best we use our beds to try to reduce the number of patients experiencing cancellations and to ensure staffing levels are right, we have been undertaking targeted recruitment drives for many months”.

Published as part of the CQC’s “Annual reports and accounts 2014/15”, the new inspection model is promoted as “expert-led”, and “more detailed and extensive than ever before”.

The CQC faced a barrage of criticism in 2011 and 2012 over its weak leadership, lack of skills and capacity and failure to intervene quickly in failing services.

The Forest Care Centre in Southwell Road was inspected to check whether improvements were being made after bosses were given a warning notice, where the CQC threaten legal action, in March this year – with health chiefs seriously concerned legal care requirements were not being met.

Health inspectors have also found that Agincare United Kingdom, whose 150 carers look after 350 people in their own homes across the county, was not meeting expectations during a recent inspection.

A spokesman said: “During this period we were aware of the challenges in transferring both large numbers of service users and staff whilst at the same time maintaining the high standards Agincare aspires to”.