BOSSES at a North Ayrshire care at home service say they are “working intensively” to try to bring it back up to standard after a scathing report from industry watchdogs.

The Richmond Fellowship is the largest provider of social care services in Scotland and the North Ayrshire housing support branch - which operates on an outreach basis from an office in Saltcoats - currently covers more than 100 people across the Three Towns, Garnock Valley, Largs and Irvine.

The charity provides housing support and care at home services to adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems living in the community.

In a recent Care Inspectorate report, inspectors noted that the service was “experiencing challenges due to both the Covid-19 pandemic and significant turnover of senior and support staff” at the time of their unannounced visit in February.

Evaluating how well people were being supported during the pandemic, inspectors graded the service as ‘2 - weak’ on a six-point scale.

The report said some strengths were found but these were “compromised by significant weaknesses”.

READ MORE: Ayrshire ambulance worker warns 'lives could be put at risk' by planned changes to nightshift cover

It stated: “The quality of personal plans and the management of medication created risks for people supported.

“We saw regular changes to planned support, often at short notice, which wasn’t always communicated to people. This impacted on support times and consistency of staff, resulting in people not always getting the most out of their support.

“There was a lack of meaningful audits, to improve medication practice and recording. We could not be assured that medication was always being administered as prescribed or that quality assurances systems to keep people safe with medication were effective.”

The report highlighted that the service’s performance had been impacted by Covid and was hampered by the “recruitment and retention of staff and the number of vacancies”.

Inspectors said: “We were mindful of this in our evaluation. However, at the previous inspection we raised concerns about vacancies, staffing levels and the impact of absences; there has been a lack of succession planning and actions taken to address these issues.”

A spokesperson for the service said: “The Richmond Fellowship Scotland is committed to helping the people we support to achieve outcomes that matter to them.

“We are working intensively to ensure this service swiftly returns to a high quality standard.”