THE county branch of the UK’s biggest home care provider has closed down following a series of below-par inspections.

Allied Healthcare Oxford, based in Kidlington, provided care for 43 people at the time of the most recent inspection in December last year, including 24-hour live-in care for people in their own homes.

The latest Care Quality Commission inspection report, published this month, found that the nursing and home care provider did not protect all people in its care from financial abuse.

Richard Preece, medical director at Allied Healthcare, said “Despite works to improve the branch, it was unable to sustain the high standards of an Allied Healthcare branch.

“As such, we took the difficult decision to close this branch after ensuring a safe transfer of those receiving care to alternative providers.”

Allied Healthcare has more than 140 branches across England, Wales and Scotland.

The Oxford branch closed in March but there was a changeover period before all people had been switched to alternative providers.

Allied Healthcare did not respond when asked how many employees there were at the Oxford branch nor the exact reason for its closure.

In their latest findings, inspectors said the service required improvement in safety, effectiveness, caring, responsiveness and found it inadequate when it came to being well-led.

They ruled that the company needed to improve its care after a third visit from health watchdog inspectors in a year.

Findings of that inspection, held in December, were published earlier this month and said that not all people under the company’s care were protected from financial abuse.

The watchdog said that the same problem had been flagged up at a previous inspection in April last year over one particular person.

The person in question had been identified as being at risk of financial abuse at the time of the inspection but the CQC said the risk was not being managed then or months later in December.

It read: “We saw there was no record of how much money was added to the person’s money box each week.

“This meant it was not possible for the provider to audit the transaction log to check that all money was properly accounted for.

“These arrangements did not protect the person adequately from the risk of financial abuse.”

Two earlier inspections held in January and April 2014 both found the service wasn’t meeting essential standards.