During an assessment under our new approach
Date of assessment: 17 November 2025 to 27 November 2025. One Step South Domiciliary Care Agency provides care and support to people living in supported living settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) does not regulate premises used for supported living. Not everyone supported by this service received the regulated activity of personal care. This assessment looked at people’s personal care and support. At the time of our assessment, the provider was supporting 17 people with personal care. The service was also registered as to provide homecare services but were not delivering any support of this nature at the time of our inspection.
The service was last inspected in April 2019 and rated “Requires Improvement” with 2 breaches of legal regulation. We inspected due to the length of time that had passed and to review if improvements had been made. We found the provider was now delivering care to a consistently high standard that put people at the heart of their own care. The breaches in regulation had been met.
We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. The care being delivered closely aligned with this guidance, and treated each person as an individual with their own rights and choices. People we spoke to felt involved in their care and empowered to achieve their goals, to have independence and develop important life skills that increased their confidence and self-belief in living life on their own terms.
There were robust governance systems which were monitoring the quality of care at the service, allowing largely proactive identification and response to any areas of concern to facilitate ongoing quality improvements. Management role modelled the values of the service and led with integrity and openness. Feedback from staff, people and their families were that leaders were visible, responsive and had developed a positive culture which empowered delivery of high-quality and person-centred care. Opportunities for learning were actively sought and taken to ensure when things went wrong, lessons were learnt and used to support improvement and the best outcomes for the people they supported.
People were supported by sufficient numbers of safely recruited and trained staff. Staff were extremely knowledgeable about the people who they supported, and people expressed they had developed close and valued relationships with their staff team built on trust and respect. The provider actively invested in their workforce, who were able to access the training and development opportunities they needed, when they needed to be able to safely support the people in their care. Staff were knowledgeable about the risks faced by people and how they might identify a person was suffering abuse or neglect.
The provider worked collaboratively with other organisations to advocate for the people they supported, with stakeholders telling us that the provider acted with openness and integrity including making proactive referrals if the people they supported needed additional support. There were care plans and risk assessments in place which set out which were created in partnership with people, and set out clearly how people should be supported safely and in line with evidence and best practice. Staff knew in detail how to support people with their physical, mental and socials needs in a way that was safe and supported them to achieve the things that were meaningful to them.
The provider and staff were knowledgeable about inequalities faced by the people they supported, and worked proactively to break down barriers in access and opportunity to allow people to engage in their wider community. The provider championed equality and inclusivity on all levels, which had empowered people to have a positive quality of life which they exercised the maximum control over. We saw a number of examples of people living healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives thanks to the impact of the team who supported them. People and their relatives told us that they were listened and engaged in their own care regularly, and the provider were responsive to any feedback or changes people wanted to be made.