A CARE agency has been told it requires improvement following a recent inspection by a health watchdog.

Unite Healthcare Ltd, on Tasker Terrace, Rainhill, a domiciliary care agency which offers care and support to people living in their own homes was told it needs to improve its responsiveness and leadership following the inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

However the service, which was supporting 255 service users at the time of the inspection, was rated as good in the areas of effectiveness and care - as well as improving in the category of safety since its previous inspection last year.

The report said: "People told us that the support they received mostly met their needs and that their regular staff team knew them well.

"Care plans included how many staff were required to support people, the tasks they were required to complete as well as people's preferred routines.

"However as the registered provider was still in the process of transferring and updating people's care plans on to the new system some did not contain information around people's social history, likes or dislikes.

"The registered manager assured us that this was being addressed.

"People and their relatives told us that not all call times were completed at the right times.

"They felt staff were often rushed and this impacted on the time being spent and times calls were made.

"Comments included "The time has been a little better recently but they are due at 8.45 in the morning and it has been 10am sometimes before they get here", "Sometimes they are late because they have got stuck at a previous visit but it's not often and they sometimes ring to let me know"."

Daniel Butler, registered manager at Unite Healthcare Ltd, said: “We are disappointed with the overall rating but more positive with the actual content of the report. We have invested significant resources in systems and people recently and we continue to strive for a good overall rating. We are greatly anticipating our next inspection in May 2019 in order to achieve this”.