Vibrant Home Care

Updated 12 October 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was undertaken by 3 inspectors. 2 inspectors visited the location’s office and 1 inspector made telephone calls to people, their relatives, and staff.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post. An additional manager had been in post for 6 months, during the inspection process they became registered with CQC.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced. Inspection activity started on 24 August 2023 and ended on 13 September 2023. We visited the location’s office on 24 August 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from Healthwatch, Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 people who used the service and 4 relatives of people who use the service about their experience of the care provided. We approached 3 health and social care professionals for their feedback and spoke with 11 members of staff including the registered manager, the compliance manager, care workers and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 11 people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at 6 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service were reviewed.

Updated 12 October 2023

About the service

Vibrant Home Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. The service provides support to older people and people who are nearing the end of their lives. At the time of our inspection there were 17 people using the service.

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

Quality assurance processes did not always provide effective management oversight for some aspects of the service. Some audits were vague and did not include documented observations as requested on the audit template, such as observations of hand hygiene. There was a lack of oversight to accidents, incidents, and complaints to establish and address emerging trends.

People’s health risks were not always fully assessed. Risk assessments were not always completed, 2 people’s risk assessment for moving and positioning had not been entirely completed. Care plans for people who required support with their skin integrity did not always contain important information. Other risk assessments, such as, for the use of catheters and equipment to support safe nutrition was detailed and contained enough information for staff.

People were not always protected from infectious diseases by good staff practices, we received some feedback that staff did not always keep people’s homes tidy. People were kept safe by staff who understood their responsibilities to recognise and report safeguarding concerns. People received their medicines safely; staff were trained and assessed as competent before administering people’s medicines.

People were supported by care staff who received training relevant to their role. Newly recruited staff completed an induction course which included shadowing a more experienced staff member. Where people’s needs changed, the registered manager sourced training for staff to be able to safely support them.

People told us there were enough staff to support them, where people required 2 staff, this was planned for and met. People and their relatives spoke highly of the care staff. A relative said, “Staff are brilliant at making sure privacy is respected.” A person told us, “The staff are fabulously caring.”

People and their relatives told us they were comfortable to complain. A person said, “I’m quite happy to contact the office if I need to. We did have some teething problems at the start.” We were given some examples of complaints raised by people and their relatives, they confirmed they were satisfied with the outcome. These complaints had not been included in the complaints log, which meant the registered manager was unable to ascertain and address reoccurring trends of complaints.

Staff worked with health and social care professionals to ensure people’s needs were met. Care records confirmed where staff had contacted district nurses to escalate concerns about people’s health. The registered manager described a good working relationship with the local hospice to ensure people had everything they needed to remain comfortable when at the later stages of their lives.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 13 March 2023).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about the provider and concerns in respect of their practice.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe, responsive, and well-led sections of this full report.

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

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Vibrant Home Care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to assessing risks, quality assurance processes and management oversight.

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.