Hertfordshire homecare ratings reveal the best and worst in the county

The ratings range from outstanding, given to the best services, to inadequate, given to the poorest services.

Renew Care, in Hemel Hempstead, was given the worst overall rating of ‘inadequate’.

Manager Maureen Okereke said: “This is an unfair judgement. We submitted an improvement plan to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and in May they told us we couldn’t take on anymore patients.

“Since then the ban has been lifted and we can now take on clients. Yes, there were some areas that needed improvement.

“As a care manager I was in the field a lot and this impacted on that fact that I was not always in the office. Also, we were short staffed.

“We have decided to take extra care that our services are adequate before taking on more clients. We want to start to work more with local communities and make sure our staff have additional training.”

Also in Hemel Hempstead, Compassionate Herts Ltd was given an overall rating of ‘requires improvement’, the second worst rating possible.

Manager Kaltrina Bojaj said: “We have received this rating because not all our staff had completed all the training. Our recruitment process has been revised to make sure that robust checks are done in time.”

One of the best ratings went to Highview Lodge with an overall rating of ‘good’ and an individual rating of ‘outstanding’ for levels of caring.