Children's Home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Bolton

Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 1 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Limited

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is owned and managed by a private organisation. It provides care for up to 3 children who may experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in August 2023.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, 2 children were living at the home. Both children were spoken with.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

30/07/2025 Full Good 13/08/2024 Full Good 24/04/2023 Full Requires improvement to be good 05/01/2023 Full Inadequate Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 3

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Summary of findings

Significant shortfalls in safeguarding practice and in the leadership and management have been identified. This has impacted on the quality of care children have received. As a result, compliance notices have been issued under Regulation 12, ‘The protection of children standard’, and Regulation 13, ‘The leadership and management standard’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Since the last inspection, 2 children have moved out of the home, and one has moved in.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Leaders and managers have not maintained the home to provide children with a nurturing or welcoming environment. Internal areas of the home are unclean, including the bathroom, doors, skirting boards and walls. Damage to a child’s bedroom door and a smashed bathroom ceiling light had not been repaired. Additionally, there are health and safety concerns both internally and externally to the property, including, broken garden furniture, obstruction to a fire exit, a child’s bed being unsecure, an electric plug socket in a child’s room covered with items and an unlocked gas boiler.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children are making progress in some areas of their lives. Both children are in full-time education, and staff support children to attend school. Children’s health needs are being met. Staff support one child to access community services for their emotional wellbeing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff understand the importance of the children’s relationships with people who are important to them. They support the children to spend time with their family, including children’s families visiting the home. However, on one occasion, when a child was having an overnight stay with family, staff did not record full details of welfare checks, including the time and method. Furthermore, there was no evidence to demonstrate that they had spoken to family members during the welfare checks. This resulted in the child being able to have contact with someone who is deemed unsafe.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff provide opportunities for children to engage in activities aligned to their interests, including going to theme parks and visiting the dog kennels. These are recorded in children’s memory books.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not have access to the local authority’s care plans for all children. This significantly limits their understanding of the children’s needs and impacts on their ability to support the children’s progress in key areas, including relationships and education.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children who make complaints do not always receive an outcome letter. As a result, they may feel that their views have not been heard or taken seriously. Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 4 Children’s bedrooms are individualised with photographs of important people in their lives and memories from activities and experiences they have enjoyed. Photographs of children and their artwork are also displayed in the home.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Shortfalls in safeguarding practice mean that children are not consistently protected from harm. For example, on one occasion, a child known to be at risk in the community left the home and remained absent for almost 5 hours. Staff did not take appropriate action to safeguard the child during this period. Furthermore, when the child returned, staff did not undertake a welfare check to assess their safety and wellbeing. In addition, staff do not consistently complete welfare checks following incidents of self-harm, which limits opportunities to assess and respond to children’s immediate needs and risks.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Staff do not consistently follow children’s safety plans, including their missing-from-home protocols. Staff do not always undertake welfare checks when children are unsupervised in the community, further reducing oversight of their safety and wellbeing. Also, staff do not consistently follow safety plans when children have visitors in their home.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Leaders and managers fail to identify or explore potential safeguarding concerns, including relationships developing between children in the home. In addition, one child has items in their room that could be used to cause harm to others.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Risk management plans do not include all known or emerging risks for children and are not consistently updated following incidents. Furthermore, staff are not always given clear guidance on how to respond to emerging or ongoing risks. These gaps in guidance expose the children to potential harm and staff do not have the direction they need to respond safely and effectively. On one occasion, this delayed staff in conducting a room search after one child was seen to be in possession of an electronic cigarette.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Leaders and managers do not have sufficient oversight of safeguarding practice. Potential safeguarding concerns are not always identified or explored. Furthermore, information is not always shared with the relevant agencies with regard to safeguarding incidents or concerns.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Following a physical intervention, staff did not record that they had spoken with the child, which was not in accordance with their procedures. Also, information recorded by staff did not provide an accurate account of a physical intervention.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Staff supervision of children during the night is not consistently effective. This has resulted in significant incidents going unnoticed until the following morning. For example, a child’s bedroom door was damaged by other children during the night. Staff only became aware of the incident when the child reported it the next morning. In addition, on more than one occasion, children were found downstairs in the home after staff had gone to bed, demonstrating a lack of effective monitoring and oversight during nighttime hours. Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 5 Direct work is done with children to help them learn how to keep safe. Staff use different resources with children, including flash cards and interactive worksheets. Children say they feel safe in the home.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Leaders and managers follow safe recruitment processes.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager’s oversight of children’s care is poor. Systems are not sufficient to help leaders and managers to maintain effective oversight of practice in the home. As a result, opportunities to identify and address shortfalls in staff practice, including the quality of recording, are missed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers are also unable to effectively monitor and analyse patterns and trends arising from incidents, limiting their ability to drive improvement and ensure that children receive consistently good-quality care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers do not consistently identify instances where consequences have not been recorded. Furthermore, the manager does not maintain effective oversight of all relevant documentation, resulting in potential emerging risks not being identified.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff are positive about the support they receive from the manager. They benefit from regular supervision and team meetings, which include contributions from the staff team’s clinical lead.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff access a range of training opportunities, both online and face to face. However, not all staff have completed health and safety or self-harming training. This may impact their knowledge, skills and ability to respond appropriately to children. Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 6

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person(s) must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

*The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other;

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Requirement Due date

understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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Requirement Due date

take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies;

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Requirement Due date

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm;

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Requirement Due date

that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(b)(e)) 6 September 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 7 In particular, leaders and managers must ensure that staff take prompt and appropriate action to safeguard children and promote their welfare at all times.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that plans are in place to safeguard children from known and emerging risks, with clear guidance for staff to follow.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that staff have the skills, knowledge and understanding to meet children’s needs, identify and manage risks effectively.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that relevant professionals are updated following safeguarding incidents and all information is shared.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that any damage to the home is rectified, broken furniture is removed and the home is maintained to a good standard.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that children’s beds are safe and secure and their bedrooms are free from hazards. This includes the covering of plug sockets.

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Requirement Due date

* The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child; 6 September 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 8 understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home;

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Requirement Due date

demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on—

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Requirement Due date

feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(a)(b)(c)(e)(f)(g)(ii)(h))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that there is oversight of all children’s care provided in the home to identify any emerging risks, take appropriate action, and share safeguarding concerns with relevant agencies.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all incidents are reviewed and that leaders identify any shortfalls in staff practice and take appropriate action to address this.

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Requirement Due date

The quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children;

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Requirement Due date

use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

provide to children living in the home the physical necessities they need in order to live there comfortably. (Regulation 6 (1)(a)(b) (2)(b)(vii))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, leaders and managers must ensure that all areas of the home are clean and maintained to a good standard, including, bathrooms, skirting boards, doors and walls, and that any broken furniture is removed and children’s beds are safe and secure. 6 September 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 9 The registered person must prepare and implement a policy which—

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Requirement Due date

is intended to safeguard children accommodated in the children’s home from abuse or neglect; and

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Requirement Due date

sets out the procedure to be followed in the event of an allegation of abuse or neglect.

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Requirement Due date

The procedure to be followed in the event of an allegation of abuse or neglect must, in particular—

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Requirement Due date

provide for records to be kept of an allegation of abuse or neglect, and the action taken in response;

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ("the missing child policy") setting out—

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Requirement Due date

the steps taken, and to be taken, to prevent children from being absent without permission; and

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Requirement Due date

the procedures to be followed, and the roles and responsibilities of persons working at the home, in relation to a child who is, or has been, so absent.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must keep under review and, as necessary, revise the home’s child protection policies. (Regulation 34 (1)(a)(b) (2)(d) (4)(a)(b) (6))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, leaders and managers are responsible for ensuring that all staff statements relating to allegations made against staff members are signed and dated by the individual providing the statement.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that children’s missing- from-care protocols include information on known associates and locations. 6 September 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ("the behaviour management policy") which sets out—

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Requirement Due date

how appropriate behaviour is to be promoted in the children’s home; and

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Requirement Due date

the measures of control, discipline and restraint which may be used in relation to children in the home. 6 September 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 10 The registered person must keep the behaviour management policy under review and, where appropriate, revise it.

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Requirement Due date

within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. (Regulation 35 (1)(a)(b) (2) (3)(c))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, leaders and managers must ensure that children are spoken to after a physical intervention within 5 days.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that physical intervention records shared with the regulator are factually accurate in terms of the date they were completed.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records ("case records") for each child which—

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Requirement Due date

include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child;

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Requirement Due date

are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that staff have easy access to the child’s case records and are able to locate key information promptly. In addition, the registered person must ensure that welfare checks during family time include the time and contact method used and recordings of safeguarding incidents are detailed.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that the Annex A is factual accurate. 6 September 2026

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Requirement Due date

Subject to paragraph (6), the registered person must establish a procedure for considering complaints made by or on behalf of children.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that a record is made of any complaint, the action taken in response, and the outcome of any investigation. (Regulation 39 (1)(3)) 6 September 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 11 Specifically, leaders and managers must ensure that children are informed of the outcome of their complaint in writing. In addition, any discussions with children in regard to the complaint are recorded. * These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people, using the social care common inspection framework. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’. Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 12

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Caretech, Parkview, 82 Oxford Road, Uxbridge UB8 1UX

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Inspectors

Michelle McGrath, Social Care Inspector Hannah Longdon, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 1156098 13 regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked-after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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