V&C Family Care Ltd

V&C Family Care LTD is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care. At the time of our inspection there were 11 people receiving the regulated activity of ‘personal care’ in their own homes. 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 told us that they were safe and well cared for by the service. Despite this, we found significant shortfalls in the risk management procedures in place at the service, which meant people were placed at risk of harm.

There was an absence of clear risk assessments and care plans to guide staff on how to provide care to people in a safe way and meet their needs.

Appropriate recruitment checks had not always been completed. This meant that some staff were working with vulnerable people without having had criminal records checks (DBS) or appropriate background checks.

Staff had not been provided with training appropriate for the role and this placed people at risk of receiving care that was unsafe or inappropriate.

It was unclear if medicines had been managed and administered safely, because there was an absence of a formal system to oversee their administration.

The management and oversight of the service was insufficient. Systems were not in place to identify shortfalls we found at the inspection and take action to rectify these.

The management of the service could not demonstrate they had the skills, competence and knowledge to run this type of service and they did not have a full and complete understanding of what was expected of them.

People made positive comments about the staff that provided them with care and said they were kind, caring people. However, we were not assured that a culture of kindness and caring was instilled by the provider.

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

Rating at last inspection

This is the first inspection of this service since it registered with CQC.

Why we inspected

This inspection was brought forward due to concerns about how the service was being managed and delivered.

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

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.