- Homecare service
Pathways to Independance
Assessment report published 12 October 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 2 to 21 September 2026.
Pathways to Independence is a homecare service providing personal care to adults, including autistic people and people with a learning disability, people with mental health needs, physical disabilities or sensory impairments. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our assessment, the service supported 6 people with personal care.
People received safe, effective and person-centred support. Staff understood people’s individual needs and managed risks in ways that promoted independence, choice and control. Staff supported people safely with their medicines. When incidents or medicines errors happened, staff sought advice, investigated what had happened and took action to reduce the risk of them happening again.
People were involved in planning and reviewing their support. Care records reflected people’s health, communication and emotional wellbeing needs. Staff worked effectively with relatives, advocates and health and social care professionals. People received support to access healthcare, maintain important relationships and participate in their communities. They achieved meaningful outcomes, including greater independence, volunteering and reduced social isolation.
Staff treated people with kindness, dignity and respect and understood what mattered to them. Support was flexible and reflected people’s preferences, routines and communication needs. Feedback from people, relatives and professionals was positive. People felt safe, listened to and supported to make decisions.
Leaders monitored care quality, incidents, safeguarding, medicines and workforce matters. Staff felt supported and able to raise concerns. The provider already had learning disability and autism-specific training in place and was developing this further in response to feedback from staff. Governance reviews identified opportunities to improve how actions were tracked and followed through. Staff feedback and record reviews also identified opportunities to improve the timeliness of some care-record updates and experiences of support outside normal working hours.
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. The provider promoted people’s rights, dignity, independence and inclusion. People had choice and control, received support to take positive risks and led active lives in their own homes and communities.
People's experience of this service
People were positive about the care and support they received. We gathered people’s experiences through conversations with an Expert by Experience, feedback from relatives and an advocate, the provider’s survey, and information in care records and reviews. Experts by Experience are people who have recent personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses health, mental health and/or social care services that we regulate. Feedback consistently described support that promoted independence, choice and control. People felt safe, listened to and involved in decisions about their lives. All respondents to the provider’s most recent survey said they felt safe, supported to manage risks and treated with dignity and respect.
People told us staff treated them with kindness, dignity and compassion. Relatives said staff were “kind and caring” and understood people’s personalities, routines and preferences. One relative told us, “The staff know if [Person] wants to chat, or not chat.” An advocate told us, “[Person] is very much listened to.”
People maintained important relationships, accessed health care and took part in activities that mattered to them. This included volunteering, football matches, social groups, holidays, theatre trips and other community activities. Staff supported people to develop life skills, become more independent and achieve personal goals. Relatives said staff encouraged people to do things for themselves rather than become dependent on support.
People’s experiences showed they had choice and control and were supported to lead active and fulfilling lives in their own homes and communities. One relative told us, “I think [Person] is living the best life that they can.”