A CITY council service that helps people to retain their independence has been awarded an outstanding rating.
The reablement service is in an in-house care agency run by Leicester City Council, which provides short-term support to people leaving hospital, or to avoid them being admitted in the first place. It helps people to stay independent so that they can continue living in their own homes.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for health and adult social care services in England. Its inspectors visited Leicester’s reablement service in December 2025.
CQC inspectors found that the service is performing ‘exceptionally well’ and rated it outstanding overall and in four of the five areas they inspected.
They singled out its dedicated staff, partnership working and culture of learning for particular praise, saying: “All those involved were committed to people’s recovery, reablement and rehabilitation, maximising the potential of people remaining in their own home, with good quality of life outcomes. Key partner stakeholders and agencies from both health and social care were unequivocally positive about the service.”
Inspectors further found that people who used the service had “consistently positive” views of it, with comments including: “We just want to say thank you for everything. The service helped us through a very difficult time,” and “I’d absolutely recommend them, they were so good and specific to what we needed.”
The CQC also praised the service for its commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to staff wellbeing, which led to a highly motivated workforce, where employees said they felt really well supported by managers.
Laurence Mackie-Jones, strategic director of social care and education at Leicester City Council, said: “We’re very proud of our reablement service, and delighted that the team’s hard work, specialist skills, experience and partnership working have been recognised by the CQC.
“This team recently exceeded their own targets when hospitals in Leicester were experiencing severe winter pressures, providing a vital service that helps to ensure people have got the support they need to move home from hospital, or to stop them from being admitted in the first place.
“Eligible people can get individually tailored short-term support from our carers to help them with personal care, food preparation and mobility. It can mean the difference between a prolonged stay in hospital and being in your own home.
“It’s great to get this outstanding rating from the CQC but it’s also fantastic to see such positive feedback included in the report from those who use our service – that means a lot to us.”
The reablement service employs a total of 80 staff, the majority of whom support people in their own homes as part of their reablement journey.
During 2025, the reablement service supported 1,673 people, of which 1,387 were able to stay living at home.
The full report is available on the CQC website at https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-2604846451
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