- Homecare service
Advantage Healthcare West Midlands
Assessment report published 7 August 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Our on-site assessment took place on 09 June 2026. Advantage Healthcare West Midlands is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and services to children, younger adults and older people. This included children with complex health needs, adults and children with a learning disability and autistic adults and children with care and support in their own homes.
We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed autistic people and people with a learning disability respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. At the time of our assessment 10 children with complex needs were receiving care. And 2 adults.
The assessment was prompted as part of the Care Quality Commission’s priorities. The service had not had an assessment in over 7 years. We also reviewed information received about the service from partners and the public.
The service demonstrated a strong commitment to delivering person-centred care and supporting adults and children safely within their own homes. Leadership was visible, responsive and focused on continuous improvement, with staff speaking positively about the support available to them and the organisation promoting a positive culture through wellbeing initiatives, learning opportunities and staff recognition programmes.
Comprehensive safeguarding policies for both children and adults were in place, covering key risks such as exploitation, neglect, consent, modern slavery, advocacy and professional boundaries. There was clear evidence of learning from incidents and lessons learnt were shared across the organisation to improve care delivery.
Staff training, competency assessments and specialist clinical support provided further assurance that people and children were cared for by suitably skilled staff.
People were supported in a personalised and inclusive way, with good examples of children and families being actively involved in care planning. Communication tools, accessible information and translation resources helped ensure people/ children could participate in decisions about their care. Positive examples reviewed demonstrated trusting relationships between care professionals, people and children receiving support and their families.
Governance systems were generally effective, with quality assurance processes, audits, improvement plans and senior management oversight in place. However, the assessment identified these systems had not always been effective in identifying or addressing concerns with medication documents. The most significant findings related to medication management, where inconsistencies were found between prescribed administration times and recorded administration times, a lack of clarity regarding responsibility for administering some medicines.
People's experience of this service
People's and children’s experiences of the service were mixed, although several relatives felt there had been improvements in recent months.
Families consistently praised caring, compassionate and dedicated frontline staff, particularly where stable teams were in place. Relatives described feeling safe and reassured when experienced carers knew people/ children well, understood their needs and worked in a person-centred way.
Some relatives also raised concerns about documentation quality, competency of newer staff and a lack of proactive planning around staffing changes. Feedback suggested experiences could vary significantly depending on the care package and management arrangements in place.
Despite these concerns, most relatives felt people's/ children needs were being met and acknowledged that the provider often listened to concerns and attempted to resolve issues. People/ children recognised recent improvements in leadership, staffing and responsiveness and hoped these positive changes would continue.