Not every “home care” service in England is regulated. The ones that provide personal care must be, by law.
How we’re regulated
Helping at Home is regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England. You can check our rating on the CQC website at any time.
What the CQC does
The CQC is independent of providers and councils, and answers to Parliament. It inspects and rates every regulated care service in England, and publishes the reports. It can force a service to improve, or close one that isn’t safe.
For a home care service like ours, that means:
- Our service is registered, with a named Registered Manager (Courtney Pike) and a Nominated Individual (Andy Griffin), both accountable to the CQC.
- Our service is inspected, and the reports are public.
The five key questions
When the CQC inspects, it asks five questions:
- Is it safe? Are people protected from abuse and avoidable harm?
- Is it effective? Does the care, treatment and support achieve good outcomes?
- Is it caring? Do staff involve and treat people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect?
- Is it responsive? Is the service organised to meet people’s needs?
- Is it well-led? Does the leadership, management and governance assure high-quality, person-centred care?
Each question gets its own rating. Our inspection rated us Good in all five areas.
What our current rating covers
Helping at Home is rated Good overall. The rating is published on our CQC profile.
It means an independent regulator inspected us and judged that we meet the standards expected of home care in England.
It isn’t permanent, and it doesn’t promise that every visit will be perfect. If standards slip, ratings drop. If we make a mistake, we report it.
What being regulated requires of us
To stay registered, we have to show evidence of many things, including:
- A Registered Manager holds personal accountability for the safety and quality of the service.
- Mandatory training for every carer, including manual handling, safeguarding, medication, infection control, first aid, food hygiene and fire safety.
- Care plans are written, signed off and reviewed. See care planning.
- Safeguarding training is current and concerns are reported properly. See safeguarding.
- Medication policies separate prompting from administration and follow NICE guidance.
- A complaints process is published. See complaints.
- Carer recruitment includes enhanced DBS checks, references and probation. We employ all carers directly.
Beyond what the regulator requires
In August 2026 we joined the Homecare Association, the UK membership body for home care providers. We are a full care-providing member and signed up to its Code of Practice.
Membership is voluntary. Nobody from the Association inspects us. We have signed up to a published set of standards, and anyone can hold us to them. If a family thinks we have fallen short, they can raise it with the Association once our own complaints process has run. It can suspend or expel a member that does not put things right. Our complaints page sets out that route.
Our membership number is PM007494 and it runs to 7 August 2027.
How to check for yourself
Anyone can look up any CQC-regulated service in England.
- Visit www.cqc.org.uk and search “Helping at Home” with the Newark location, or use this direct link: Helping at Home CQC profile.
- The profile shows the current rating, the last inspection date, the full report and any regulatory action. Ratings can change, so check the live page rather than a screenshot.
What unregulated care looks like
Not every “carer” in Newark works for a CQC-regulated service. Some are self-employed. Some agencies act as introducers. They match families with self-employed carers, but don’t employ them and aren’t registered with the CQC. That is legal for some kinds of support.
Without CQC regulation, there’s no independent inspection, no required care plan, no published complaints process, no regulator to escalate to, and no statutory training. For personal care, medication, complex care or dementia care, families usually prefer the regulated route.
Common questions
What’s the difference between Good and Outstanding?
Outstanding recognises services that go well beyond the expected standards. Good recognises services that meet them consistently. Both mean the CQC judged the service safe and well run at inspection. The full report tells you more than the headline.
When was your last inspection?
Our most recent CQC inspection took place on 20 November 2025. The full report is published on our CQC profile.
What happens if you lose your Good rating?
We’d tell families directly, update this page and the homepage, and explain what’s changed and what we’re doing about it.
Are you regulated for nursing care?
We’re registered for personal care, not nursing. Where nursing input is needed, it comes from the District Nursing service, hospice nurses, or nurses commissioned through NHS Continuing Healthcare, alongside our personal care visits.
Next step
Call 01636 646915 or request a care assessment.