The examples below provide insight into how other Good or Outstanding rated services are succeeding in this area of inspection.
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Collaborative personalised care planning
The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice including CQC’s ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance. People’s care and support plans contained information about their personal likes and dislikes. People told us about their involvement in review meetings. One person said, "I go into my [review] meeting and things get changed." Another person told us, "Yes, [I am involved in] everything."
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: hcs Supported Living
Date published: July 2025
Planned care with proactive health
The management team always planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation. They worked to develop evidence-based good practice and standards.
People were supported to maintain a good nutritional and fluid intake, to support with ensuring their health and wellbeing. Care plans and risk assessments in place for people’s identified health needs always followed best practice guidance. Staff we spoke with understood the importance of ensuring care delivery met these standards. Where people were being monitored for their weight, we saw regular checks of this were recorded. If this weight fell out of range, prompt referrals to health teams were made.
Where people lived with a risk of falls, we saw robust risk assessments in place. These detailed multi factorial risks, considering the impact of medicines, hydration levels, infection risks and a person’s gait and balance. Staff we spoke with understood the importance of encouraging mobility, whilst considering these risks.
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: Wilford View Care Home
Date published: November 2024
Person-centred creative dementia support
The service always planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation. They worked to develop evidence-based good practice and standards. Staff ensured best practice guidance was obtained and followed, for example ‘sing for the brain’ is known to assist people with dementia retain their skills. We also observed staff followed best practice around dementia care so stepped in to meet people’s needs, which had led to people retaining their communication and social skills. A relative said, “The carers have helped us work out that just before lunch is the best time to visit, so that [person’s name] doesn’t get so anxious when we leave and they (staff) can distract her. The carers know that routine is really important to mum, so they organise her day.”
Staff worked closely with people and in very creative ways, to ensure they had balanced and nutritious diets. The catering team were always at hand during mealtimes to check if people were happy. They let people know in advance what was on the menu and would take requests for different options. People were extremely complimentary about the food and discussed how responsive the catering staff were to their requests. A person said, “[Person’s name] appetite has been up and down through all this (recent health dip) but they will cook her whatever she wants, cut it up into small pieces for her or even help her to eat if she wants that.”
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: Dovecote Residential Care Home
Date published: October 2024
Passionate best practice transforms lives
The registered manager and provider were passionate about supporting people in line with current best practice such as RSRCRC. They had effectively embedded this into staff practice at the service and the resulting outcomes for people as a result were extremely positive. For example, thanks to the way staff supported people, they no longer needed the help of physical restrictive intervention or medicines when they felt unhappy. This had a substantial positive impact on people’s quality of life. One person was expressing how happy they were. The registered manager showed us evidence this person used to be restricted in numerous ways but had not been since living at the service.
Staff told us how the registered manager encouraged them to learn and keep up to date with best practice. One staff member said, ‘‘The training we have is superb. It really helps me to get to grips and understand how people are feeling. Its eye opening to see how people see the world.’’
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: The Limes
Date published: September 2024
Accredited by specialist association
The registered manager and case managers kept abreast of current legislation, standards and evidence-based guidance. They were all accredited by The British Association of Brain Injury Case Management (BABICM). They had taken part in research surveys and interviews, had articles published in magazines and had written a chapter in a book about brain injury, which was published. The registered manager said: "We like to get involved, and we like to share our knowledge."
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: J S Parker Limited North East
Date published: February 2020
Best practice guidance
The provider had up-to-date policies and procedures that reflected national best practice guidance and current legislation to guide staff practice.
Recognised assessment tools were used for the care and management of people's needs, such as with skin, falls, nutrition and oral care. The registered manager consistently researched best practice guidance and had a collaborative approach in supporting people to achieve good outcomes. This included working closely with external professionals and participating in social care research programmes.
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: The Byars Nursing Home
Date published: August 2019
Benchmarking the benefits of live in care
The provider had benchmarked outcomes against alternate care provisions to demonstrate the benefits of live-in care. This looked falls management, pressure sores, UTIs, chest infections, antipsychotic medicines and palliative care. The analysis of data as compared to alternate care provisions showed more positive outcomes for people in receipt of live-in care.
For example, when compared with care homes, the data showed that people experienced fewer serious injuries because of falls, were less likely to acquire pressure sores, less likely to be prescribed anti-psychotic medicines, had fewer hospital admissions due to early diagnosis of UTI's and chest infections, and were more likely to die in their preferred place.
The provider was preparing a paper around reducing emergency intervention for UTIs through the introduction of urinalysis testing kits for publication in a scientific journal.
Read more about this service here.
Care provider: The Good Care Group
Date published: April 2019
Using champions to drive forward best practice
Best practice developments were adopted and embedded in everyday practice. The staff team consisted of a variety of different 'champions' whose responsibility was to research innovative techniques and technologies to support the people living at the service.
For example, to achieve people's objectives of becoming more independent, the communications champion researched communication aids to support them in the community. They developed pictorial and electronic communication booklets for people to use when shopping, eating and drinking out and taking part in activities.
Read more about the service here.
Care provider: SENSE - 89 Hastings Avenue
Date published: April 2019
Enhancing quality through frameworks
In order to benchmark ourselves against other services, we use self-assessment tools and benchmarks and quality frameworks.
We pride ourselves on the use of quality frameworks to guide our work and business planning. This ensures we’re at the forefront of quality initiatives in social care for people with learning disabilities.
Frameworks have included:
- disability confident employer
- driving up quality in learning disability services
- Think Local Act Personal
- health charter
- Quality Matters
- dignity in care
- positive behavioural support (PBS)
- NICE guidelines.
We try to use creative methods where we can, to help everyone (staff, people we support, families) understand the focus of these frameworks and why they’re important for quality.
Read more about the service here.
Care provider: Castle Supported Living
Date published: April 2018
Leading insight into guidance and requirements
The registered manager and nominated individual worked together to ensure they clearly understood the Health and Social Care Act 2008. They incorporated this learning into policies, procedures and best practice guidance. The service was able to instil confidence in their systems, and processes were useful and effective.
Care provider: Anonymous
Date published: April 2018
Keeping up-to-date with best practice
Our registered manager and other members of the senior team maintain their skills and knowledge to ensure care is delivered in-line with good practice guidance.
They attend training, conferences, provider forums and meetings, as well as being members of organisations that offer regular updates and reading materials. This learning is then cascaded to the team.
Read more about the service here.
Care provider: Egalité Care Ltd
Date published: April 2018
Ensuring training and staff guidance is current
Our clinical training is reviewed annually to ensure it’s current and complies with up-to-date best practice guidance.
NICE guidance, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and other relevant guidelines are sourced and shared by our head of clinical excellence. This information is also available to all employees via our intranet.
We have links with local universities such as the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. We have student nurses at the care home who work alongside mentors. These dedicated mentors must be up to date with all legislation and pass a test with the university to ensure their standards are up to the required role as a mentor.
Read more about the service here.
Care provider: Brunelcare’s Deerhurst Care Home (with Nursing)
Date published: April 2018
Using guidance to drive change
Undertaking their own research into ulcer care, the registered manager looked closely at NICE guidance in relation to nutrition, hydration and pressure ulcer care. Through undertaking this analysis, the registered manager led an initiative to increase people’s mobility and keep people moving.
Care provider: Anonymous
Date published: April 2018
Incorporating expert guidance
The service incorporated expert guidance from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, The Alzheimer’s Society, the Stroke Association and the Parkinson’s Society into the care they provided. This included including relevant information into people’s care plans for staff to follow.
Care provider: Anonymous
Date published: April 2018