Missed or late visits can be a major headache in home care. They don’t just cause stress for your team, they can disrupt continuity, reduce trust, and even put client safety at risk.
But here’s the good news: improving visit punctuality doesn’t mean pushing staff to the limit.
In this article, we’ll explore five practical, evidence-based strategies care providers can use to reduce missed and late visits without overloading carers or managers.
Each one is simple to implement, scalable across different care settings, and designed with both people and performance in mind.
Whether you’re managing a small domiciliary care team or coordinating a large home care rota, these tips will help you schedule smarter and improve reliability.
Add realistic buffer times between visits
On paper, back-to-back care visits might look efficient. In reality, they rarely account for travel, traffic, or the unpredictable nature of client needs. When schedules are too tight, delays stack up (and carers fall behind).
What to try
Add 10–15 minute buffer times between visits, especially in rural or traffic-heavy urban areas. This not only gives carers a realistic travel window, but also helps absorb the impact of small delays without disrupting the rest of the day.
Expert insight 💡
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance for home care highlights the importance of realistic time allocations to avoid rushed or unsafe care. Even small changes in care scheduling software can reduce pressure and improve care quality.
Track travel time to spot inefficient routes
One of the biggest culprits behind late visits is inefficient travel. If you’re not measuring travel time, you can’t manage it—and you might be missing opportunities to optimise your schedule.
What to try
Log each carer’s postcode and visit locations in a simple spreadsheet, then use a free route planner like Google Maps or RouteXL to identify problem legs.
Expert insight 💡
If you’re using a digital home care software platform like PASSgenius™, you can track travel times automatically. The tool calculates average travel time per staff member and flags inefficiencies, so you can quickly spot where time is being lost.
Create a safe space for carers to talk about delays
Your frontline team knows where the scheduling issues lie. It could be overlapping calls, unrealistic visit lengths, or frequent changes at short notice. But unless they feel safe speaking up, those insights stay buried.
What to try
Bring lateness patterns into regular supervisions and make it clear that the goal is to solve problems, not assign blame.
Even better, offer an end-of-shift feedback form where carers can anonymously raise concerns or flag recurring issues.
Creating this open feedback loop builds trust and helps managers see trends that aren’t obvious from data alone.
Systems like care management software can also log these feedback patterns and help flag recurring problems early.
Use the 80/20 rule to find the root cause
Not all missed visits are equal. Often, a small number of underlying issues cause the bulk of your lateness problems. Think: one tricky route, an overbooked team member, or a poorly timed lunch break.
What to try
Review a week’s worth of late visit logs. Group them by root cause. You’ll often find that around 80% of issues stem from just 20% of problems (a concept known as the Pareto Principle).
Focus on those top culprits first to make the biggest impact quickly.
Use alerts or manual logs to stay responsive
Automated systems can help you stay on top of punctuality, but even a basic shared log can reveal valuable patterns.
What to try
Set up a simple tracker to record missed or late visits. Whether you use a shared document or a feature in your digital system, make it part of your weekly review.
You’ll start to see patterns, certain time slots, staff members, or clients, and can respond before issues escalate.
Final thoughts
Reducing missed and late visits isn’t about squeezing more into the rota. It’s about scheduling smarter, creating feedback loops, and using your data to drive decisions.
And the right digital care planning software makes a big difference – helping managers streamline rotas, anticipate problems, and give carers the support they need to stay on time.
💡 P.S. Need tools that do the legwork?
PASS helps you track travel time, monitor punctuality, and optimise your rota – all without the spreadsheet stress.
📅 Book a quick tour to see it in action.
