Verve Homecare Ltd

Updated 13 March 2021

The inspection

This was a targeted inspection to check whether the provider had met the requirements of the specific concern we had about safe recruitment practices. We will assess all of the key questions at the next inspection of the service.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

Emergency Personnel Homecare Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service had a manager who was awaiting their application and was in the process of becoming registered with the Care Quality Commission. A registered manager is a person who is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. The manager informed us after the inspection they had their registered manager interview scheduled on 3 March 2021.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced with less than 48 hours’ notice. We gave the provider a short notice period because we were aware the management team were at times working remotely due to COVID-19 and we needed to ensure somebody would be available to assist us with the inspection. The provider was not informed about the information of concern we received when notice was given.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

We reviewed the previous inspection report and we sought feedback from the local authority and health and social care professionals who work with the service. We also reviewed the information of concern that had been shared with us via our contact centre which triggered this inspection. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We reviewed 10 staff files in relation to recruitment and training and external audit reports related to the provider’s recruitment agency contracts compliance. We spoke with four staff members. This included the manager, a director, the head of operations and the compliance and quality manager.

Updated 13 March 2021

About the service

Emergency Personnel Homecare Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. It provides nursing and personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to older adults, younger disabled adults and children. 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.

At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting 49 people with personal care across 16 London Boroughs and 10 other Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) outside of London.

The provider also recruited staff through a recruitment agency which was part of their organisation. They provide nursing and healthcare staff to NHS hospitals and private healthcare services under separate contracts, not managed within the remit of the CQC’s regulatory authority.

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

We received information raising concerns about the current recruitment practices of the provider, which alleged nursing and healthcare staff were sent out to work before the necessary checks had been completed. This included staff not having Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificates, appropriate visas or right to work in the UK documents or valid references. It was also alleged that documents were falsified to show they were compliant for their external auditors and senior staff asked the recruitment team to amend dates on a range of documents to show they were currently valid.

We found no evidence during the inspection that showed safe recruitment practices were not being followed, with examples of the provider following best practice to ensure the staff they recruited were suitable to work with vulnerable people and children.

The management team were open and transparent when we discussed the concerns with them and explained they had gone through a large change in the team structure, where there had been a turnover of staff due to performance issues.

We did not speak with any people who used the service as part of this inspection as they would not be able to comment on the recruitment practices carried out by the provider.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 11 December 2018).

Why we inspected

We undertook this targeted inspection to follow up on a specific concern which we had received about the service. The inspection was prompted in response to concerns received about safe recruitment practices. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.

CQC have introduced targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check specific concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns.

Please see the safe section of this full report.

You can read the report from our last inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Emergency Personnel Homecare Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service. If we receive any concerning information we may return to inspect.