All inspections: CLARITY HOMECARE (BRISTOL)

Date of assessment 14 April to the 1 May 2025.Clarity Homecare (Bristol) is a home care service providing personal care to adults in their own home. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting 60 people. 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.

This was a responsive assessment to review the provider’s actions from our last assessment published in November 2024. At the last assessment we rated the service requires improvement in the safe and well led key questions and overall. There were 4 breaches of regulation in relation to safeguarding, safe care and treatment, fit and proper staff, and good governance.

We looked at 6 quality statements; learning culture, safeguarding, involving people to manage risks, safe and effective staffing; medicines optimisation, and good governance. We found improvements had been made and the rating has changed to good.

Improvements had been made to ensure people were protected from harm with risk assessments in place that were sufficiently detailed. Systems were in place to record any safeguarding concerns, the actions taken and lessons learnt. Improvements had been made to the medicine management and any gaps in recording were followed up and addressed.

People were protected by robust recruitment processes. Staff were receiving regularly training that was monitored, including checks on their competencies relating to medicines and moving and handling.

Robust governance systems had been introduced to monitor the quality of the care, service provision and staffing including recruitment and training. This meant the management team had improved oversight of the quality and safety of the service.

However, further improvements were needed to ensure staff electronically logged into each visit correctly. On occasions staff were logging into the morning call rather than the evening call. The management team were working with staff to embed these improvements.

Date of assessment 25 July to 10 September 2024.

Clarity Homecare (Bristol) is a home care service providing personal care to adults in their own home. The service was supporting 92 people at the time of the inspection. 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.

We looked at 6 quality statements; Safeguarding; Involving people to manage risks; Safe and effective staffing; Medicines optimisation; Learning culture; Good governance. We rated the service requires improvement in the safe and well led key questions and overall. The ratings for other quality statements remain good.

We found shortfalls relating to safeguarding. Systems had been created, but the recording of safeguarding issues or actions before this was inconsist. We also found risk assessments were not always sufficiently detailed or up to date and there were errors and gaps regarding medicines. Procedures for recruiting staff were not robust. De incomplete and checks and training were not always completed as required. The management team had identified gaps and were making improvements in all of these areas.

Governance and accountability systems were not always effective or embedded. Audits were not completed consistently, and shortfalls were not always identified. CQC had not been notified about some incidents. This is a legal requirement. The provider had identified improvements were needed and were making changes in line with their action plan.

We received mixed feedback from people about the staff who supported them. Staff were positive about changes and the support they now received from the management team.

There were breaches of the legal regulations in relation to safeguarding, safe care and treatment, fit and proper staff, and good governance. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.

Clarity Homecare is a home care service that provides personal care to adults in their own home. The service was supporting around 10 people, at the time of the inspection.

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 said they were well cared for and safely supported with their needs. Examples of comments made by people and relatives included, “They are pleasant and caring,” “They help me walk and put me in the chair. They go one each side and I haven’t fallen yet” and “They know how I like things done because I tell them.”

Several people said some staff sometimes spoke to each other in their first language. People said they did not want to be rude to these staff but found this made them feel uncomfortable as they did not know what was being said. The registered manager was given this feedback and they said they had already been made aware of this matter and were addressing it.

People felt safe with the staff who supported them with their care needs. Staff were guided to keep people safe by current risk assessments showing how to reduce risks for each person they supported. The staff had an up to date understanding of safeguarding. This meant they were aware of what to do to keep people safe if they thought they were vulnerable to abuse.

There was a system to monitor and learn after accidents and incidents had taken place. People’s medicines were managed safely. Staff knew how to reduce the spread of infection.

People were protected from the risks from unsafe staff. This was because recruitment and selection processes were in place to employ suitable staff. There were enough staff deployed to provide care and support to people that was safe and met their needs.

Regular training for staff was in place. This meant staff were effectively trained to ensure they were fully competent in their work.

Quality monitoring systems and processes were in place and were effective. These were used to review feedback and to check care delivery, staff performance and training. For example, the time taken for each visit was monitored to ensure people’s needs were fully met.

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

This was the first inspection of the service.

Why we inspected

This service was registered with us on 3 August 2020 and this is the first inspection.

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.

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

CLARITY HOMECARE (BRISTOL)

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

During an assessment under our new approach

1 September 2021

During a routine inspection