A care franchise has been taken over after the Care Quality Commission found it to be inadequate during an inspection.

Bluebird Care Newham, a franchise of Bluebird Care Services Ltd, will now be run by the parent company following the verdict.

Since 2008, the Newham franchise has been providing care in homes across the borough and was found to be compliant when it was last inspected in March 2014.

But during a four-day visit in January this year, inspectors rated it as inadequate for safety and leadership, and requiring improvement in being responsive and effective.

The report read: “Care files were of a poor quality, they were task focussed and contained limited personalised information.

“Systems to monitor the quality of the service were not effective. The service did not consistently learn from complaints or incidents or use these to drive improvements in the service. The management and leadership of the service were not effective.”

Following the report, Bluebird Care moved to remove the franchise from its owners, Robert and Helen Ghandi, and place it under the leadership of Robert Fielder, who has been running the Petersfield franchise for two years.

Bluebird Care’s chief operating officer, Duncan Berry, said: “Bluebird Care prides itself on providing the highest quality of care, leading the field in customer service. In this instance, those high levels were regrettably not being met.

“An interim manager with a proven track record of delivering the highest quality of service has taken over the running of this franchise.

“Every effort is being taken to immediately rectify problems which have occurred.”

The franchise employs 52 staff to provide care to 55 patients in the borough, who were praised in the report for being ‘caring’, ‘kind’ and ‘eager to please’.

The CQC rated it as good when answering the question of whether the service was caring, and said: :“People felt they were treated with dignity and respect.

“The service attempted to provide care workers who spoke the same language as people who used the service.”

Mr Berry apologised for the result of the inspection, saying: “Our customers are the most important part of our business and I would like to apologise to them and assure them that they will continue to see the same care assistants that they have come to like and respect in the same uniforms going forward.

“Any changes will be made at a management level to improve service and consistency.”