Essex Care Consortium - Colchester

Essex Care Consortium in Colchester is a residential care home supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people. The CQC found staff were kind and caring, with people appearing happy, engaged and safe, and care was person-centred and promoted dignity. However, inspectors identified shortfalls in safety, including how risks around the environment, medicines and infection control were managed, and found short periods of seclusion were not always carried out in line with legal requirements.

The service was previously in special measures due to inadequate ratings, and the CQC found enough improvement had been made for it to exit special measures. Governance still needed strengthening, as systems for logging incidents and safeguarding concerns were not consistently used to spot patterns and prevent recurrence.