Capital Homecare (UK) Limited was rated Requires Improvement overall, with breaches of Regulation 17 (good governance) and Regulation 18 (staffing) due to widespread late calls, ineffective electronic call monitoring, poor PRN medicines recording, and audit systems failing to identify these issues. Caring, effective and responsive practice were rated Good, reflecting positive outcomes for people in day-to-day care delivery.
Concerns (6)
criticalMissed or late visits: “staff were late for 10% of scheduled calls (1539 calls) by more than 45 minutes and 28% of scheduled calls (4388) were over 15 minutes late”
criticalStaffing levels: “we found some calls were scheduled for staff to be in 2 places at the same time...17.7% of calls had no travel time allotted between two postcodes”
criticalGovernance: “provider audits failed to identify and make improvements in relation to staff deployment, late calls, call monitoring, and medicines management”
moderateMedication management: “1 person's specific medicine was not signed for all of February 2023...another medicine from 9th to 12th February 2023 with no explanation on the MAR”
moderateMedication management: “Some people were prescribed PRN (as required) medicine, but it was not clear if they received their medicines when required...in some cases was left blank”
moderateRecord keeping: “1297 calls were not logged...a large proportion of calls we don't know whether they happened and or whether people received the care they were supposed to”
Strengths
· Staff treated people with kindness, dignity and respect, with consistently positive feedback from people and relatives
· Robust recruitment checks carried out for all staff before starting work
· Care plans were person-centred, reviewed periodically, and included sufficient guidance for staff (improvement since last inspection)
· Staff received regular supervision, training and felt supported by approachable management
· Effective safeguarding procedures in place; staff understood their responsibilities and whistleblowing process