Vibrant Homecare Thanet

Vibrant Homecare Thanet is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to older people, people who have a physical disability and people who have dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 18 people using the service but only 17 who received the regulated activity of personal care. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People’s medicines had not always been managed safely. There had been a number of medicines errors including giving too much or too little of the medicines people were prescribed. We found gaps in people’s risk assessments, for example, care plans lacked detail for people who were diabetic and what to do if their blood sugars were too high or too low. However, this was addressed by the registered manager during inspection.

People told us they were not always happy with their call times, the registered manager was aware of this and had taken action to address this prior to the inspection.

Peoples needs had not always been fully assessed, for example, a falls risk assessment was not in place for someone who had previously fallen. People’s care and support plans were not consistently person centred. We found some sections of people’s care plans were copied and pasted from other care plans and were not reflective of people’s individual needs.

People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

It was not always clear if the provider was working within the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA). The registered manager told us that everyone had capacity to consent to their care, however documentation was not always in place to support this.

Governance processes were not always effective. Audits and checks were in place for areas such as medicines, and shortfalls had been identified, however, errors of underdosing and overdosing were still happening.

People and relatives told us the staff were caring and supportive.

Staff understood how to safeguard people from abuse. People and their relatives told us they felt safe. Staff had completed training in areas such as manual handling, safeguarding and first aid to ensure they could support people safely.

The service worked well with other agencies such as people’s GP and district nurses to ensure people received the right care and support.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 23 January 2023 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted due to it being an unrated service

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to managing people’s medicine and good governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.