Care service shuts after second failed inspection

A care service for people with learning disabilities and autism has shut down after a second failed inspection in a year.

In April 2025 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated Lifeways Community Care's Leicestershire County branch as inadequate - the lowest possible rating - and said staff "lacked" training to support people effectively while management of incidents was "poor".

Enderby-based Lifeways said it accepted the findings and would be "addressing them" but in March, CQC inspectors again graded it as inadequate and said people were receiving "unsafe care".

Lifeways has confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that it "no longer delivers services".

In this year's inspection, published on Thursday, the CQC found that staff were still "not equipped with the training, competence or clinical knowledge required to support people with complex health conditions or to respond appropriately to medical emergencies" including "gaps" in training needed to administer life-saving medicine.

Health problem monitoring was "inaccurate and those being cared for "didn't receive their medicines as prescribed or intended", said the CQC.

Inspectors found staff gave one person their medicines in secret, with no assessment in place, which inspectors said represented a "serious breach of people's rights and placed them at increased risk of harm".

It also found risk management was "not safe, not robust and did not protect people from harm" while care bosses did "not listen to or understand people's needs, views and wishes" and were not "capable, compassionate or inclusive".

Staff told inspectors they did not "feel confident to speak up" adding that "issues were overlooked" which led to "ongoing risks and a failure to drive meaningful improvement".

A Lifeways spokesperson told the LDRS: "We recognise that support was not always to the high standard we expect and we no longer deliver services from this registration."

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