Caremark (Harlow & Epping Forest)

We carried out this assessment between 12 August 2025 and 30 September 2025. At the time of our assessment 36 people were using the service with 32 of those people receiving support with personal care.

We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. We found the provider was not meeting all the principles of Right support, right care, right culture.

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (report published 23 November 2023). We carried out this assessment because the service had not been inspected for a long time. We also received concerns that staff were not trained, people’s care calls were late, risks were not assessed when they changed and overall governance did not support the principles of Right support, right care, right culture. We looked at all the quality statements relevant to those concerns and the overall rating for this service has stayed the same.

The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation to safe care and treatment, staffing, good governance and notifying CQC of incidents that affect the safety of the service. Improvements were not found at this assessment, and the provider remained in breach of these regulations.

Incidents that had occurred were not always recorded appropriately to investigate, identify causes and reduce risks through timely lessons learnt. Where there had been a change to people’s health needs these had not always been reviewed and actions taken to mitigate risks. Care plans lacked detailed information or had not been completed for individual risks. This meant there was a risk people may not be supported safely.

Training had not been provided to staff in key areas. Senior staff received no additional training to support their role. Where training was completed most of these were through an e-learning platform and staff completed multiple units in one day. This meant training was not planned or effectively supported staff in their role.

People had experienced significantly early care calls or significantly late calls from inconsistent staff. This was due to a lack of effective planning. There were no missed calls and overall timeliness improved during this assessment.

Staff follow good standards of hygiene when providing care to people and have the required personal protective equipment (PPE) available to them and have attended infection prevention training.

Staff were found to be working in accordance with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and knew how to support people who may lack capacity.

The management team required further improvement to understand the systems and processes needed to support staff and people using the service. The provider’s governance systems had not been effective in identifying or addressing the areas for improvement we found during this assessment. The provider told us they had recognised the need to expand the management team, bringing in a new registered manager to ensure better oversight of the service. Staff also worked in senior positions although it was not clear how these roles would work together.