A nursing and home care service in Halesworth has said it regrets the events that led to the death of one of its patients.

Prestige Nursing has been told it requires improvement across all borders following a CQC inspection in December 2016.

Prior to the inspection, the CQC received information of an incident following which a person died.

Enquiries were made into the circumstances around the death but the Commission decided there was 'insufficient evidence' to warrant criminal action on the case.

Carol Hunt, commercial director of Prestige Nursing and Care said: 'We regret that events of December 2015 led to the death of a person who was in receipt of care from Prestige and offer our sincerest condolences to their family for their loss.

'We are satisfied the care workers involved took appropriate decisions and actions during their visits to the client's home, and that appropriate efforts were made to contact the client's next of kin using the details we were given. We have cooperated with the coroner to support their investigation into the circumstances involved and have also undertaken a full internal review of these events and our procedures for care visits and potential client safeguarding issues.'

At the time of the inspection the service cared for 70 people.

The CQC report said: 'We did identify some systemic issues about the management of instances when a person does not respond to a house call and/or the person is not at home to receive their care. Our enquiries also raised concerns about the provider's management of complaints and application of their Duty of Candour (DOC) policy and procedure.'

On inspection they noted that the DOC had been revised and records of concerns and complaints was being applied in a way in which people and their families were being kept informed.

Also during the inspection they found that there were not enough staff or enough travel time between calls.

Mrs Hunt has said that measures have been implemented since the inspection to improve quality assurance and staffing levels to ensure a consistent service that meets all of their clients need.