- Homecare service
Ethica Care Hemel Hempstead & St Albans
Assessment report published 30 June 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 15 December 2025 to 14 January 2026. This was an assessment covering all 5 key questions and was prompted by a review of the information we held about the service. This was our first assessment of the service since the provider registered with CQC on 13 September 2023. The service is a care at home service providing support to older people living in their own homes some of whom may live with dementia, sensory impairment, or a physical or learning disability. Not everyone who used the service were receiving the regulated activity of personal care. Personal care is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating.
At the time of this assessment, Ethica Care Hemel Hempstead and St Albans were supporting 74 people across reablement and traditional homecare, of those 40 people received a regulated activity. Reablement is a short-term, goal-focused, service designed to help people regain independence in daily activities like washing and dressing particularly after a hospital stay, illness, or fall.
The service was registered to provide support to autistic people and people with a learning disability. Although at the time of this inspection no person was receiving personal care we have 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 respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.
There were 3 breaches of regulation identified at this inspection which were in relation to safe care and treatment, safeguarding and good governance.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
The provider overall had not ensured effective systems were in use in relation to monitoring and improving quality and safety. This had resulted in shortfalls with the oversight of the service and issues related to care visits, call monitoring, medicines administration, incident and safeguarding reporting, reviews of care and care planning and auditing key areas of the service. This lack of oversight meant staff and people received an inconsistent and at times poorly planned approach to providing and receiving care.
There were enough staff employed to meet people’s needs, but the deployment of staff meant people experienced delays and a lack of consistency. Staff had attended a range of training subjects, but many staff had not received training relevant to their role.
People’s care was not always planned with them, reviewed when needed and did not assess identified risks to mitigate the risk of harm. The systems in place at that time did not support care planning that ensured both safety and that people were at the centre of their care.
We received varying feedback about the management team. Communication was a recurrent theme that staff and people felt required improvement.
There was a new manager in post since October 2025. They were aware of the improvements needed and shared with us their plans for improvement. At the time of this inspection, we were unable to look at those improvements as they had yet to be implemented or had not been in place long enough to assess their impact. The new manager at the time of the inspection had not submitted to CQC an application to register as the manager for the service.
People's experience of this service
We spoke to 5 people and 7 relatives via telephone to gain their feedback about the care they received. People across the service had contrasting experiences. Some people's feedback was positive with no concerns, whereas others raised areas for improvement and where their care was less than adequate. Our report refers to this varying feedback to support our view of people's experience.
People said they did not feel unsafe with staff, but some found changing staff unsettling and caused them concern. People were supported by the care staff to manage their health needs but did not have a comprehensive support plan in place to inform all staff of those needs. Some people had their care calls at the planned and agreed times. Others, including those who had time sensitive needs, such as being given a medicine, did not experience this consistently as times and staff changed. Some relatives said they had raised concerns about scheduled care call times being unsuitable or late, but issues went unresolved.
People were not consistently supported to plan and review their care which meant outcomes were inconsistent and did not aways meet the expectations of people.
People said communication with office staff needed to improve and that they were not always informed about changes to staff or care call times.
People were positive about the care staff and the manner they went about their tasks. People used terms such as 'sensitive', 'warm and caring' when describing the personalities of the care staff team. People were supported to maintain their independence and dignity which was important to them.
People's experience of the management of the service was not as positive. They expressed frustrations at the lack of communication from the office team, a lack of planning that led to inconsistencies in timing of their care or which staff were planned. People were aware of the appointment of the new manager and some of those spoken with were able to share examples of how they had been approachable and professional when needed