- Homecare service
IECC CARE
Assessment report published 1 June 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 26 February to 02 April 2026. IECC Care provides personal care to people as part of the support they need to live in their own homes. Personal care is provided under separate contractual arrangements to those for the person's housing. 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 the inspection the service was supporting 49 people. Everyone who used the service received personal care.
We completed this assessment to check for improvement since our last assessment in October 2023. The provider was previously in breach of the regulations relating to person centred care, safe care and treatment, safeguarding people from abuse, safe recruitment, staff training and good governance. Although improvements were noted, the provider was found to be in breach of regulations for consent to care and treatment, receiving and acting on complaints, and continued breaches relating to staffing and good governance.
This assessment found systems and processes for assessing, monitoring, and improving the quality and safety of the service required further strengthening. Although audits, spot checks, welfare checks and strategic director meetings had been introduced, these had not always identified and addressed inconsistencies in people’s visit times, poor response to complaints and a lack of information to demonstrate how people’s capacity to consent to care and treatment had been assessed. Where we identified potential risks to people’s safety and welfare the provider took swift action to address these, however their own system for monitoring the service had not identified these in the first instance. The provider has reassured us they intend to make the improvements needed; however, they currently do not have an overarching improvement plan in place to measure outcomes, drive improvement and ensure those improvements are embedded and sustained.
This service has been in Special Measures since October 2023. The provider demonstrated improvements have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
People's experience of this service
People using the service, and their relatives described inconsistent experiences of the care and support provided by IECC Care. The strongest recurring themes were variability, in visit times and staffing. While some people and their relatives reported stable, compassionate care delivered by a consistent core of staff, others described concerns relating to safety, reliability, communication, training, and management oversight. Comments include, “The call times are hopeless, [Person’s] times are useless for them, they are a complete mess, they [staff] try to put them to bed at 3pm, and on occasion the carer hadn’t even turned up. They never do the whole time slot, they always rush off, staff are chasing their tails all day. When they came out to assess [Person], we were very specific about times, and they said they could comply, but they don’t,” and “The timing of visits is not regular. The times change daily and we never know when they are going to turn up. That unpredictability makes it difficult to plan.”
Where people had a regular, experienced main carer, feedback was positive. These carers were described as skilled, kind, and familiar with the person’s needs. However, when regular staff were absent standards were reported to decline. Families described disorganisation, poor communication, missed or late calls, and staff arriving without sufficient knowledge of the person’s needs. The quality of care was heavily dependent on individual staff rather than embedded in systems and oversight. One relative commented, “There are frequent changes in carers. Carers change a lot, which makes it harder to build understanding and consistency. They [staff] appear to be very task focused,” and “when [Person’s] usual carers went away it was chaos.”