- Homecare service
Social Care Solutions Ltd (Herts & Bucks)
Report from 10 March 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment 20 May to 17 June 2025.
Social Care Solutions Herts and Bucks is a supported living service providing support to older people, and younger adults with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder who live within the supported living settings. At the time of the assessment the service was supporting 11 people, 7 people at one supported living setting and 4 people at another.
This service provides care and support to people living in a 'supported living' setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People's care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this assessment looked at people's personal care and support.
This assessment was prompted by a review of information we held about this service.
At the time of our assessment there was no registered manager in post. One supported living setting had recently appointed an interim service manager until September 2025 and the service manager was currently absent from the other supported living setting with a team leader managing the day-to-day oversight of people’s care and support. Both shall be referred to as the manager for the purpose of this report. The regional director was providing support to both; however, they left their post during our assessment process. The managing director advised a new area manager would commence in post on 23 June 2025 and would be providing support to both supported living settings.
The assessment included 3 days where we visited both supported living settings. We found 3 breaches of regulation in relation to the safe management of medicines, consent, and governance.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ (RSRCRC) is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it. This guidance was reviewed as part of this assessment, and we found the provider had failed to fully meet the principles of it.
Risks to people’s safety and welfare were not always assessed to mitigate the risk of harm. Medicines were not managed safely. Staff were not sufficiently trained to meet the needs of people. The provider and staff did not always recognise how to promote people’s rights, choices to ensure their independence. Governance systems and management and provider oversight had not been effective in identifying the shortfalls we found at this assessment to make the required improvements.
In instances where CQC has decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.
This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.
People's experience of this service
The principles of ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ (RSRCRC) were not always being met as the model of care provided did not always allow people to live empowered lives with maximum choice and independence.
While people and/or their representatives were generally satisfied with the care they received, our assessment found significant concerns with the care people received and we found elements of their care did not meet the expected standards. Care plans did not always contain risk management information and people’s capacity to consent to their care and treatment had not always been assessed and regularly reviewed. People and/or their legal representatives views had not always been sought to make decisions about their day-to-day care and support. People were at risk because staff failed to administer medicines safely and some people were found to not receive them as prescribed. Feedback had not always been sought by the provider from people and or their representative to help drive improvements across the service.