Buglawton Hall School

CQC do not rate services that are defined as being a children's home and which are also registered with Ofsted.

We carried out this assessment onsite on 4th and 5th August 2026 and assessed 14 quality statements across the key questions Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. Our assessment included reviewing care records, speaking with children and staff (including senior leaders), reviewing performance information and observing how care and treatment were delivered. The evidence base included contributions from 18 individuals, including children and their families.

The new location meant that children had only lived at Buglawton Hall School for a relatively short time at the time of inspection; for two children, this had been only a matter of months. The rural location offered opportunities to develop and diversify the service in response to children’s individual needs. The provider operated the home as four individual flats for the children placed there.

Overall, we found that the provider had a well‑embedded culture of safety, underpinned by clear processes, transparent incident management, and effective safeguarding arrangements. Staff were well trained, understood their responsibilities, and consistently applied evidence‑based practice. We found children were meaningfully involved in decisions about their care, with accessible information available and personalised approaches in place ensuring their needs, preferences, and rights were consistently upheld. We observed staff delivered compassionate, respectful care, and the provider placed high value on children’s emotional wellbeing and lived experiences.

Leadership was inclusive, visible, and improvement focused which fostered a positive culture in which staff felt supported, valued, and confident to raise concerns. Governance arrangements were in place which ensured accountability, up‑to‑date policies, structured risk management, and regular performance monitoring. Quality improvement processes were embedded, collaborative, and informed by both staff and children. Children received high quality, person-centred care and experienced positive outcomes to help improve their health and wellbeing.

Whilst there were processes and procedures in place we had concerns that these were not always fully effective and could be further strengthened to help drive improvement in the quality and safety of the services provided. Staff and leaders did not always bring together information about children’s care, progress and outcomes in a cohesive and accessible way. Although staff collected significant information through daily records, assessments, care plans, incident reports and professional meetings, this was not consistently aligned across documentation. This limited the provider’s ability to clearly demonstrate how information was analysed and used to inform care planning, decision-making and measurable improvements in outcomes for individual children.

Risk management arrangements should be strengthened to ensure that risks are clearly identified, assessed and managed consistently. While risk assessments were in place, records did not always provide a clear rationale for identified risks, in particular, the management of ligature risks was not always clearly articulated within risk assessment documentation, and how leaders communicated these measures to staff and reviewed them. This limited assurance that risks were being managed in a consistent and proportionate manner.

In addition, a comprehensive COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) environmental risk assessment had not been completed. This reduced oversight of potential environmental hazards and limits leaders' ability to demonstrate that all relevant risks had been systematically assessed and appropriately managed.

Recording of PRN medicines should be improved to ensure safe administration of these medicines for children, with oversight of their effectiveness and impact for the child.

There has been a planned change to the Registered Manager role for almost a year. However, due to procedural delays, this change had not been completed within the anticipated timescales. Some external stakeholders we spoke to told us they were unclear about leadership arrangements and lines of accountability within the service. As the transfer had been planned for some time the day-to-day management responsibilities were increasingly delegated to the incoming manager in preparation. While leaders provided assurance that the transition was progressing, greater clarity and communication with stakeholders would strengthen understanding of management oversight and accountability arrangements during this interim period.