Updated 28 July 2026
About the service
Royal Mencap Society - Domiciliary Care Services and Shared Lives - West London is a Shared Lives scheme that provides personal care to people with a learning disability and autistic people of all ages. The scheme recruits, trains and supports self-employed shared lives carers who offer accommodation and support to people placed with them in their family home. At the time of this assessment, 2 people were using the service.
The service is also registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as a supported living service and home care agency. We have undertaken a separate assessment of their supported living provision, details of which can be found on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk. The providers home care service was not operating at the time of the assessment.
Who the service is for
This is a specialist service for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
We assessed the service against ‘right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people received respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.
We carried out this assessment between 29 September and 6 October 2026.
This service was previously rated as good. We carried out this assessment to confirm whether the rating of good remains accurate. This report does not provide detailed information on areas where we found practice continues to meet a good standard. Instead, our findings focus on any areas where the service needs to improve or where we found exceptional practice.
This shared lives scheme was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of right support, right care, right culture.
The registered manager/coordinator promoted an open and transparent culture where people, staff and others felt confident to raise safety concerns and report incidents. Concerns and incidents were thoroughly investigated to support continuous improvement and help keep people safe.
People were protected and kept safe. The registered manager/coordinator and the shared lives carers understood their responsibilities to safeguard people from the risk of abuse and knew how and when to report concerns to the relevant care professionals and agencies.
The registered manager/coordinator and carers understood and managed risks well. Risks to people had been assessed, and staff had access to current information and guidance to manage these effectively while promoting people's safety and wellbeing.
The provider assessed risks in people’s living environments and put measures in place to reduce these and ensure the family homes of carer’s remained a safe environment for people to live.
Carers who were self-employed had to be formally approved by a panel of care professionals, including multiple senior managers representing the provider, before people were allowed to move into their family home. The provider also undertook pre-employment checks on carers and staff working for the scheme to make sure they were suitable to work with people using the service.
People using the service, their families (where appropriate), community-based care professionals, the registered manager/coordinator and carers were all involved in the shared lives placement matching process. The needs and wishes of people and carers were all considered as part of the matching process. People were given sufficient time to get to know and build a relationship with their carer/s and family before any placements were approved.
Carers received appropriate levels of training, supervision and support to enable them to continue to effectively meet the needs of the person they shared their lives with and to keep them safe. Training was refreshed regularly to ensure carers delivered evidence-based care in line with current best practice. The registered manager/coordinator and carers understood their shared lives roles and responsibilities.
The registered manager/coordinator and carers managed medicines safely. Medicines stocks, balances and records showed people consistently received the medicines prescribed to them.
Carers listened to and involved people they supported, understood how people preferred to communicate and ensured essential information they needed was available in easy to understand and accessible formats. People received person-centred care from carers who knew them well and understood their individual needs and preferences. Care plans were personalised, flexible and updated in response to changes in a person’s needs and wishes.
People, and those involved in their care, were actively involved in assessments and regular reviews to ensure care plans reflected their wishes and how they wanted their support to be provided. The registered manager/coordinator regularly reviewed people’s care and support to ensure they continued to achieve positive and consistent outcomes.
People were supported to understand their rights around consent before staff provided them with care and support. People were not subject to unlawful or excessive restrictions they had choice, control and freedom over their lives.
People were listened to and their feedback was used to make changes to the care and support they wanted. Carers and staff understood people’s right to receive care and support that met their individual needs.
People were treated with kindness, compassion and respect by their carer/s who promoted their privacy, dignity and rights.
People had choice and control over how their care and support was provided and their carer/s encouraged them to do as much as they could and wanted to do, with activities of daily living, to maintain their independence.
The service worked to reduce health and care inequalities through training and feedback.
The service had a welcoming and inclusive culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.
Governance arrangements were in place to support the delivery of safe, high-quality and sustainable care. The registered manager/coordinator actively sought feedback from people, relatives and the shared lives carers to promote continuous learning and improvement. Feedback, together with learning from incidents, audits and quality assurance checks, was used to drive improvements in the safety and quality of the care provided.