Choices Homecare operates 14 domiciliary care services across the North West and Yorkshire, supporting a mix of local authority and private clients. Services vary significantly in size, from smaller services delivering 300-400 hours of care per week to larger services delivering close to 1,000 hours.
As Quality Improvement Manager, Katie Latham oversees governance, care planning quality and auditing across all services, ensuring consistency, compliance and continuous improvement at scale.
Choices Homecare uses CareLineLive as their all in one home care management software, and MOA Benchmarking as their compliance software.
The challenge: fragmented audits and time-consuming compliance
Before MOA Benchmarking was fully embedded, auditing across Choices Homecare was fragmented. Some audits were completed on paper, others on spreadsheets, with little consistency across services.
This made it difficult to:
- Maintain oversight across multiple locations
- Analyse findings into reports and/or insights efficiently
- Benchmark services against each other
- Turn audit findings into clear, actionable improvement plans
As Katie explains:
“Our audits were everywhere: paper, spreadsheets, different formats. You could complete an audit, but the time came afterwards trying to analyse it all and turn it into something meaningful.”
With increasing regulatory change and growing expectations from the CQC, particularly around feedback, quality of life and continuous improvement, the existing approach was no longer sustainable.
Introducing MOA Benchmarking
MOA had already been introduced to the business, but it hadn’t yet been fully rolled out or embedded. When Katie joined Choices Homecare, she was given ownership of the platform with a clear goal: make compliance structured, consistent and usable across all services.
Having never used the software before, Katie started with MOA’s online training and worked closely with her dedicated project manager to understand not just how the system worked, but why it was designed the way it was.
“I’d never used MOA before, but the training and support were great. I spent a lot of time working through it properly, and once I understood the reasoning behind it, it made complete sense.”
One place for all audits, built around the business
One of the biggest turning points was the ability to create custom audits within MOA.
Choices Homecare began by digitising their existing audits, bringing everything into one central place. This included critical audits such as monthly health and safety checks, which are key areas of focus for the CQC.
“Being able to build our own audits was huge for us. We could capture exactly what we needed as a business and finally have everything in one place.”
Once audits were completed, MOA automatically analysed the data, produced benchmarking reports and highlighted trends across services, removing the need for manual analysis.
“The reports do the analysis for you. That’s the biggest win. Instead of spending time working out what the findings are, you can spend that time actually acting on them.”
From audits to action, and evidence to match
With MOA, audit findings now flow directly into structured action plans, allowing managers to:
- Track progress
- Evidence improvement
- Demonstrate next steps clearly to the CQC and local authorities
MOA’s role-based permissions also allowed tasks to be delegated confidently across teams.
“It’s taken a lot of pressure off managers. Audits can be delegated to team leaders who want to step up and learn, while still maintaining oversight.”
Automatic alerts ensure audits are completed on time, helping compliance become part of day-to-day operations rather than a last-minute scramble.
“In a manager’s world, day-to-day reminders make such a difference.”
Supporting CQC readiness during regulatory change
All Choices Homecare services currently hold a ‘Good’ CQC rating, with several services awaiting inspection following acquisition. MOA plays a central role in maintaining and improving those ratings.
“We rely on MOA a lot now. All our audits and surveys are in the system, and feedback is a huge focus for the CQC. MOA helps us evidence that clearly and honestly.”
As CQC expectations evolve, particularly around quality statements and feedback, MOA’s library of CQC-specific audits and surveys help Choices Homecare stay aligned without resorting to tick-box compliance.
“It’s not just auditing for auditing’s sake. MOA helps us evidence the things the CQC is really looking for now.”
The impact: less pressure, better use of time
Without MOA, Katie is clear the impact of regulatory change would be significant.
“The workload would be massively increased. We used to spend so much time analysing audits and creating reports ourselves.”
Drawing on her experience as a Registered Manager, Katie highlights how transformative this has been:
“Before systems like this, audits would fall behind simply because there wasn’t time. MOA has easily cut that workload in half.”
Compliance is no longer about finding time, it’s built into routine.
A message for both large and small providers
While Choices Homecare is a large, multi-service provider, Katie is clear that MOA is just as valuable for smaller services.
“No matter the size of your service, governance and safety are critical. MOA gives you what you need without having to manually find it all yourself.”
For smaller providers, the key is focus and prioritisation.
“For smaller providers, my advice for their registered managers would be: do the training, set the system up properly and then delegate. Once it’s embedded, it becomes part of daily work.”
Ease of use and onboarding
While MOA initially felt comprehensive, once embedded it quickly became intuitive.
“At first it can feel like there’s a lot there but once you start using it, everything makes sense. Pulling reports is easy and the system becomes second nature.”
Today, MOA is a daily tool across services, supported by clear guidance, training, and structure.
Looking ahead
Choices Homecare is now exploring rolling MOA Benchmarking out across additional specialist services within the Optimo Group, recognising the value of specialist audits and consistent governance.
As MOA continues to align more closely with CareLineLive, even greater efficiencies are expected.
“When it officially works alongside CareLineLive even more closely, the time savings will be huge.”
Interested in learning more about our compliance feature?
Learn more about MOA Benchmarking here
