Supplier to ‘every NHS trust’ placed in special measures

Healthcare at Home, which is based in Staffordshire but provides NHS-funded care and medicine supplies to patients’ homes across the country, has been rated “inadequate” and placed in special measures.

A report published today said inspectors found more than 10,000 patients missed a dose of their medicine between October and December 2020 due to problems caused by the introduction of a new information system. Reviews have found some suffered avoidable harm as a result.

The company has around 1,500 employees, a similar number to several NHS community trusts, and “works with every NHS trust in the UK”, according to nhs.uk.

The report added: “Some patients’ conditions deteriorated and they had to be admitted to hospital, whilst others experienced psychological trauma because of the uncertainty of not knowing when they would receive their essential medicines.”

Prior to this, between April and October, there were more than 13,000 incidents involving a missed dose of medicine. The CQC said not all of these resulted in patient harm or were attributed to the provider, but the provider was unable to demonstrate all of the patients had been reviewed.

Darryn Gibson, chief executive for Healthcare at Home, said: “Healthcare at Home’s top priority has always been delivering the best possible care and service for patients and we therefore deeply regret the difficulties some patients faced as a result of problems with our new computer system last October.

“We took swift action to deal with the issue and within a short time patient service had returned to normal. We look forward to a rapid reinspection by the Care Quality Commission to confirm our patients are receiving a high-quality service. Our new computer system is already delivering an even better service to patients.”