How Visit Reports Are Created
Once a visit is scheduled by office staff in the rota, it automatically appears on the care worker's mobile app. Each care worker can only see their own scheduled visits for the next two weeks, not other care workers' visits.
When it is time for a visit, the care worker taps on the visit and sees a Check In button. When they press Check In, it works like a screenshot: OnCare captures their exact GPS location along with the date and time at that moment. The same happens when they press Check Out at the end of the visit. This allows OnCare to calculate the exact time spent at the visit and whether the care worker was actually at the client's location. If they were not at the correct location or arrived late, alerts are triggered after they clock out.
Once clocked in, the care worker sees all the tasks assigned to that client, each with the prompt written by office staff when they set up the visit plans for that client's care plan. The care worker works through each task and types what they did in the text boxes provided. Once they complete all required tasks (or explain why any were not done), they can clock out. The visit report is then generated automatically from all of this data.
Visit reports replace the handwritten notes that many agencies still keep in client folders. Unlike paper records, visit reports in OnCare are timestamped, location-verified, and stored centrally where they can be accessed by authorised office staff at any time.
Why Visit Reports Matter
CQC expects care agencies to maintain accurate, up-to-date records of the care delivered to each client. Visit reports are your primary evidence that each visit happened as planned, on time, at the right location, and with the correct tasks completed. If CQC asks to see records of care delivered to a specific client over the past month, you can pull up every visit report instantly.
Visit reports also help you identify issues. If a care worker is consistently spending less time than expected at a client's home, or if certain tasks are regularly being marked as not completed, the visit reports make this visible so you can investigate and take action.
Where to Find Visit Reports
Office staff can find visit reports in the web application by navigating to a client's profile and viewing their visit history, or by accessing the schedule view and clicking on a completed visit. You can also find visit reports through the Reports section for a broader overview across clients and care workers.
Care workers can also see their own visit reports inside the mobile app, as well as other care workers' visit reports for the same client. This is useful because it allows a care worker to review what happened on previous visits before starting their own, helping them provide consistent, informed care.
What You Can See Inside a Visit Report
Each visit report contains the following information:
The basic details including the client name, the care worker name, and the care plan name associated with the visit.
The check-in time and check-out time, showing exactly when the care worker started and finished the visit.
A map overview showing exactly where the care worker clocked in and clocked out. On the map, you will see a pin with an arrow going down (representing check-in) and a pin with an arrow going up (representing check-out). This gives you a visual confirmation of where the care worker was at the start and end of the visit.
If you notice that the care worker was clocking in at the right location but the map pin appears slightly outside the set area due to GPS positioning, you can readjust the pin as office staff. This corrects the client's location marker for future visits so that distance alerts are not triggered incorrectly going forward.
Any alerts that were triggered for that visit, including late visit alerts, distance alerts, and missed medication alerts. These are displayed clearly within the report.
As office staff, you can add a resolution directly inside the visit report to explain how you managed any alerts. The resolution records the date, the time, and the name of the office staff member who handled it, creating a full audit trail visible to anyone reviewing the report, including CQC inspectors.
All the written notes from the care worker for each task, showing what they did and any observations they recorded during the visit.
An agency notes section below the care worker's notes, where office staff can add complementary notes. This is useful if the care worker did not have time to write everything down for each task, or if you need to add context from the office side. Office staff cannot edit the notes written by the care worker directly. Any additional information must be added through the agency notes section to maintain the integrity of the original record.
Below the agency notes section, if friends and family have submitted a review for that visit through the Friends and Family portal, you will see their feedback: a rating from 1 to 10 and a comment. If no review has been submitted for that visit, nothing will show in this section.
Editing Check-In and Check-Out Times
As office staff, you can edit the check-in and check-out times directly inside a visit report. This is useful when something went wrong with the care worker's phone, for example if the app crashed, the battery died, or they forgot to press the button at the correct time.
When you change a check-in or check-out time, you are required to enter a reason for the change. This reason is recorded in the visit report's audit trail, so when CQC inspectors review the report, they can see that the time was adjusted, why it was adjusted, and who made the change. This transparency is essential for maintaining trust in your records.
Editing times should only be done for legitimate reasons. Changing times to hide late arrivals or to inflate visit durations undermines the integrity of your records and could be flagged during a CQC inspection.
Visit Reports and Payroll
Visit reports are directly linked to payroll calculations. OnCare uses the clock-in and clock-out times from visit reports to calculate care worker pay. If a visit report shows a 45-minute visit, that is what feeds into the payroll report. This is why accurate clock-in and clock-out times are important, not just for CQC compliance but also for ensuring care workers are paid correctly.
If you edit a visit report's times (for example, to correct a technical error), the payroll calculation will update accordingly. Always document the reason for any time changes so there is a clear audit trail linking the payroll figures to the actual visit data.
Common Issues with Visit Reports
When a care worker has poor or no mobile signal during a visit, OnCare still records all the visit data locally on the phone. The tasks, notes, check-in, and check-out information are all saved on the device. The only difference is that the visit report will not be sent to the server immediately after clock-out. Once the phone reconnects to the network, the visit report is automatically uploaded and becomes visible in the dashboard. So even with bad service, the data is not lost.
However, GPS location will not work if there is no network signal at all, or if the location feature in the phone's settings has been turned off by the care worker. OnCare cannot prevent care workers from disabling their location services on their phone. As a manager, you need to make sure care workers keep their location services enabled at all times during working hours. This should be covered in your internal policies and procedures, and care workers should acknowledge this requirement. If a care worker regularly has location issues, check whether they are turning off their location settings before assuming it is a network problem.
Incomplete notes are another common issue. If care workers are submitting visit reports with minimal or no notes for each task, the reports lose much of their value as a care record. Encourage care workers to write meaningful notes that describe what they actually did, not just "done" or "completed."
Best Practices for Visit Report Management
Review visit reports regularly, not just when there is a problem. Spot-checking reports helps you identify trends such as consistently short visits, missing notes, or recurring alerts before they become bigger issues.
Use the agency notes section to add context whenever you review a report and notice something worth documenting. This builds a richer care record over time.
Make sure all alerts within visit reports are resolved with a clear note explaining the action taken. Unresolved alerts in visit reports are gaps in your audit trail that CQC may question.
Train care workers on how to write good visit notes. The quality of your visit reports depends entirely on what care workers type during each visit. Invest time in showing them what a good note looks like versus a poor one.
Include visit report review as part of your internal policies and procedures. Document how often reports are reviewed, who is responsible, and what action is taken when issues are found. This demonstrates to CQC that you have a systematic approach to quality assurance.