A charity that provides respite for families in Moray and throughout the north of Scotland has pledged to improve their services after being criticised by inspectors.
In a report on Crossroads Caring Scotland’s North division, which has offices throughout the north of Scotland including one in Elgin, the Care Inspectorate has said they are “concerned about variations in care” in the region.
The report has awarded the charity some of the lowest possible grades, saying that they found instances where workers did not appear to help their clients because it was their day off or that they simply forgot to cover an appointment.
In a review carried out earlier this year the inspectorate say that they had concerns over the variations of care throughout the region. This included one case where a service user could neither eat or take medication because a carer did not turn up.
The report said: “As a result of our findings and the lack of proper processes, we concluded that Crossroads Caring Scotland – North was not in a position to deliver good outcomes across the service.”
Inspectors said that while noting a high number of service users who were very happy with the service they received, they found it “unacceptable” that not every office in the region was achieving the same standards.
The report said: “When we raised these concerns the duty care coordinator told us that although things were getting better, staff had phoned in and made excuses as to why they were unable to provide support.
“We interviewed staff and they told us that on occasions when they tried to summon support from the service’s on-call manager they got no response.”
The charity’s chief executive, Jack Ryan, has promised the entire organisation would work hard to improve standards in the region after expressing his huge disappointment at the report.
He said: “There is not an organisation in the world that does not slip up from time to time. We have to learn from these mistakes and make sure we get these grades up quickly.
“At the same time we also have some excellent stuff going on with staff who are doing an almost impossible job at times. However, the Care Inspectorate does not take an average and goes by the lowest grade.
“We have identified the areas where things need to be put right and requested another inspection.”