Social Care Solutions Ltd (Herts & Bucks)

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

The service was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation toneed for consent. Improvements were found at this assessment, and the service was no longer in breach of this regulation.

This service scored 46 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We did not look at Assessing needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Delivering evidence-based care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at How staff, teams and services work together during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

The provider had begun to make improvements in how people’s rights around consent and decision making were understood and upheld. There was evidence of improved involvement from relatives and legal representatives, although further progress was still required. Previously, people were not always told about their rights, Mental Capacity Assessments (MCAs) were rarely decision specific, and Best Interest decisions often lacked meaningful involvement from people, families or legal representatives.

Since the last assessment, staff had reported gaining a better understanding of MCA principles through recent knowledge sharing sessions, and service managers demonstrated clearer awareness of how to assess capacity and involve the appropriate people and professionals. Staff also described how they supported people to make everyday choices in line with the MCA, with one worker explaining, “I gave [Name] choices about what they wanted to do or wear,” and highlighting how they used personalised communication for a non‑verbal person, stating, “The person was non‑verbal and communicated with signs; in their room they had signs we used to communicate.”

We also found more recent examples of decision specific MCA and Best Interest documentation, including those relating to medicines, assistive technology and restricted items. However, some MCA records still combined multiple decisions on a single form, particularly in relation to care and support planning, which did not fully support person centred consent practice. These findings showed that, while meaningful progress had been made, the provider needed to continue embedding these improvements so that people were consistently informed of their rights, supported to make their own decisions wherever possible, and that any decisions made on their behalf were clearly justified, proportionate and aligned with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act.