Unique Personnel (UK) Limited - Waltham Forest

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• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Safe – this means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated requires improvement.

This meant some aspects of the service were not always safe and there was limited assurance about safety. There was an increased risk that people could be harmed.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to safeguarding people from abuse.

This service scored 59 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always have a proactive and positive culture of safety based on openness and honesty. Staff did not always listen to concerns about safety and did not always investigate and report safety events. Lessons were not always learned to continually identify and embed good practice.

Learning from safeguarding concerns was not always recorded. The provider’s safeguarding log had sections for reviewing themes and patterns. These were not completed following incidents. Records of lessons learned repeated the same wording across different types of concerns. This meant that there was a risk that lessons were not learned following incidents to ensure the risks of reoccurrence were minimised.

However, managers shared learning with care workers at team meetings. Managers described a real situation to the team and asked care workers to discuss why the practice was unsafe. Staff members were able to provide feedback at these meetings.

The provider worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services.

People’s care was planned when people started using the service or when their needs changed. A professional who arranged care packages with the service told us the provider communicated promptly and gave them the information they needed when issues came up. They had no concerns about the safety of the care people received.

When the local authority reviewed one person’s care, the provider confirmed arrangements that had been agreed and set out how they would meet them. This included which care worker would attend most of the person’s visits and the timing of the evening visit to help them settle at night to ensure transitions went smoothly and there was continuity of care.

The provider did not work well with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and how to achieve that. They did not concentrate on improving people’s lives or protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. The provider did not share concerns quickly and appropriately.

On 2 occasions, in January and May 2026, relatives raised concerns about 2 people’s money. The January concern was recorded in the provider’s complaint log but was not recorded in their safeguarding or incident logs. The May concern was not recorded in their safeguarding, complaints or incident logs. In both cases, relatives told us the care worker involved had been removed from the person’s care package. However, neither concern had been reported to the local authority or notified to CQC. This meant no one outside the service had considered the safeguarding concerns or assessed whether there was a risk to other people.

The provider referred both concerns to the local authority after we raised them, and one incident was also referred to the police. The provider told us failure to refer these had been an oversight. They told us concerns would be referred promptly in future.

Most care workers we spoke with understood what safeguarding meant and knew how to report a concern. One care worker could not explain what safeguarding meant, although their training record showed they had completed safeguarding training.

The provider worked with people to understand and manage risks by thinking holistically. Staff provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them.

Risk had been identified and assessments set out what the risk was, what could happen to the person and what care workers should do about it. Where health professionals had given advice, this was reflected in what care workers were asked to do. One person’s risk assessment recorded that a healthcare professional had advised on how their feet should be cared for because of their diabetes and set out steps care workers should follow.

However, risk assessments did not always contain accurate information about another person. Their risk assessment described a difficulty with walking caused by a neurological health condition. The person’s relative told us they had not been diagnosed with that condition and did not have that difficulty.

The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care.

Care plans set out the risks in each person’s home and what care workers should do about them. One person’s care plan recorded that they sometimes forgot to turn off appliances because of their dementia, and a gas cooker had been disconnected after a safety incident. Care workers were asked to check that appliances were safe and switched off, and to report any safety concerns to the person’s family and the office immediately. Staff had completed fire safety training as part of their recruitment.

The provider did not always make sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff. They did not always make sure staff received effective support, supervision and development. They did not always work together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs.

The provider did not always make sure 2 care workers attended visits where people had been assessed as needing support from 2 care workers. In some of these visits the second care worker arrived after the first one had almost finished, so the two were together for less than 15 minutes. In others the second care worker did not attend at the same time at all, and the person received 2 separate visits from one care worker. This meant people did not always get the support they had been assessed as needing placing them at risk of harm.

The provider did not always allow enough travel time between care visits. Some visits had no travel time between them. Others allowed only 1 or 2 minutes for care workers to reach the next person’s home. This meant the care workers could not always arrive at the time people were expecting them.

The provider could not always show whether care visits had been delivered as planned. Around 1 in 9 visits was manually logged in by the office staff rather than recorded through the electronic system. There were many occasions where the same care worker appeared to be logged in at two people’s homes at the same time. This meant the times recorded were not a reliable record of when care workers arrived and left.

Care workers could not always contact the office outside normal working hours. This meant care workers could not always get advice or support when they needed it. The provider had since revised these arrangements. Calls were diverted to other branches when busy, and care workers had an additional emergency number to use outside normal working hours.

However, the provider had systems to recruit staff safely. Right to work checks, employment histories and disclosure and barring service checks, which show whether a person has a criminal record or is barred from working with adults or children, were completed before staff started work. Care workers received regular supervision, and additional supervision was arranged after difficult events.

The provider assessed and managed the risk of infection. They detected and controlled the risk of it spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly.

Relatives told us care workers used Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when they visited. Care workers told us they knew how to use it correctly, including how to put it on and take it off safely. They told us there was always plenty of PPE available in the office. Care plans set out the steps care workers should take to protect each person from infection. Care workers completed infection prevention and control training as part of their recruitment.

However, the provider had received complaints about care workers not wearing all the protective equipment they should. In response, managers reminded care workers what to wear at every visit and arranged for supervisors to carry out additional spot checks.

The provider did not always make sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences. Staff did not always involve people in planning.

The provider’s medicines audits showed one person’s electronic medicines records were not completed by the care workers who gave their medicines. Care workers could not access the electronic medicines records during some visits, so office staff completed the records afterwards on their behalf. The office staff had not attended these visits. After we raised this, the provider gave us paper medicines records signed by care workers for the same visits. However, the provider’s own audits recorded that no medicines record had been completed at the time of these visits. The records therefore gave conflicting information about how medicines had been recorded. This meant the provider could not be assured that its medicines records were accurate or that people received their medicines safely.

The provider’s medicines policy did not tell care workers what to do if they could not use the electronic system. After our assessment the provider told us care workers should complete a paper record, tell the office straight away and hand the record in at the end of the month. They told us they would add this to their policy.

However, the medicines records we reviewed for other people were completed accurately.

Care workers received medicines training and had their competency checked before they gave medicines. On one occasion 2 care workers promptly reported a concern about a person’s medicines. The office contacted the pharmacy, and the person’s medicines were reviewed and changed as a result.