Herts home-care provider gets Outstanding CQC rating for third consecutive time

Abbots Care, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, has been rated Outstanding by the CQC for its home-care services in Hertfordshire. These consecutive inspections have taken place in 2019, 2021 and 2025, meaning the care provider has been rated Outstanding for seven years.

Abbots Care is Hertfordshire County Council's lead provider of care-at-home services and looks after 871 clients in the county and employs 544 trained care staff.

The CQC report said: “Everyone at Abbots Care should be proud of what they’ve achieved for the people in their care, and we hope others look to this report as an example of great practice.”

Camille Leavold, CEO of Abbots Care, who was awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List this year, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to homecare over the past three decades, said: “We are over the moon to receive the Outstanding rating from the CQC for the third time running – and in the year that we celebrate our 30th anniversary too.

“It is the highest recognition for our excellent, highly trained, hard-working care staff. It is rare for a home-care provider to get an outstanding rating on just one inspection, let alone three times running. According to The King’s Fund Social care 360 report, only 5% of adult social care services were rated Outstanding by the CQC in 2024 so this acknowledgement of the high standard of service we provide goes a long way to demonstrating to the local community how good the care is that we provide.

Sarah Hurley, care director at Abbots Care, welcomed the CQC’s comments on the leadership of the home-care provider, which said they were “skilled, honest, and exceptionally inclusive. When they spotted opportunities or people raised concerns to them, we found they took action to improve people’s care”.

Sarah said: “While it is rewarding for our leadership team to be applauded by the CQC for the strong leadership and decision-making they provide that benefits the whole team and our patients, we welcome the Commission’s remarks on the high standard of care that we deliver.

“Our care staff look after clients with a wide variety of needs and ages across the county and they go above and beyond what is expected of them to care for our clients.”

The CQC said that “most people we spoke to were exceptionally positive about the quality of their care” sharing stories about how “staff members had looked after people’s pets when they were in hospital or took a person’s hearing aids for repairs because they had no family that could”.

“These observations by the CQC have been so uplifting and inspiring for our team,” added Sarah.