- Homecare service
The Office
Assessment report published 30 April 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 24 March to 3 April 2025. The service is a supported living service providing support to people with a learning disability and autistic people. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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 2 people were being supported with personal care.
Systems to support safe recruitment were ineffective. Not all staff had received a Disclosure and Barring (DBS) check, staff files did not contain evidence of identification or information about their health. People did not always receive support in line with their commissioned hours. Staff had not completed training in all necessary areas.
The service had not developed care plans relating to people’s health or routines. Risk assessments were not available to inform staff about known risk and provide guidance on how to mitigate risk. Audits were not being completed to drive improvements in the service. There was a risk of a closed culture developing. This had not been recognised and no action taken to address the risk.
An assessment has been undertaken of a specialist service that is used by autistic people or people with a learning disability. 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.
We identified breaches relating to safe care and treatment, governance and staffing. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.
People's experience of this service
People and relatives we spoke with were happy with the care provided. However, our assessment found elements of care did not meet the expected standards.
We visited one person in their home. They told us they were involved in planning their care and able to make decisions about how they spent their time. They said they were able to contact staff if they needed support and felt safe. If they had any worries they were able to discuss these with staff. The person had a hobby which was clearly important to them; staff ensured they were able to attend regularly. The other person receiving personal care was not available to meet with us. We spoke with a relative who said they were satisfied with the quality of care their family member received and were confident they were happy with the service. They commented, “[Name] is doing absolutely brilliantly.”