How to Write a Safeguarding Policy for a Care Home or Domiciliary Care Service
A safeguarding policy is one of the first documents CQC looks for. What yours must include, how it differs between residential and domiciliary settings, and the mistakes that trip providers up at inspection.
By HeroDocs Team
Care providers in England should have a safeguarding policy in place. CQC looks for one as part of registration and ongoing compliance. Having the document is not enough on its own. CQC looks for evidence that your safeguarding policy matches how your service really works, that staff understand it, and that you review it when things change.
What Is a Safeguarding Policy in a Care Setting?
A safeguarding policy is a formal document that sets out how your organisation:
Identifies concerns about abuse or neglect of the people in your care
Reports concerns to the right people
Responds when something goes wrong
It sets out what everyone in your team must do, from care worker to registered manager. It also explains how you work with local safeguarding authorities, families and other agencies.
The laws your policy must follow include:
Care Act 2014: the main law for adult safeguarding in England
Children Act 1989 and Working Together to Safeguard Children: applies to services supporting younger adults or children
Your local Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) guidance: your policy should reflect local multi-agency procedures and local safeguarding arrangements
What CQC Expects to See in Your Safeguarding Policy
CQC inspects safeguarding under the Safe key question, looking for proof that your policy is practised rather than merely written. Inspectors will ask staff what they would do if they saw a concern, and those answers should match what your policy says.
CQC expects your safeguarding policy to cover all the types of abuse listed in official guidance:
Abuse Type | Examples |
|---|---|
Physical | Hitting, restraining, rough handling |
Emotional | Humiliation, threats, isolation |
Sexual | Any act without the person's consent |
Financial | Theft, misuse of funds or property |
Neglect | Failing to provide food, medication, or care |
Discriminatory | Abuse linked to race, religion, gender, disability, or other protected characteristics |
Organisational | Abuse linked to a culture, routine, or practice within a service |
Self-neglect | When a person neglects their own health or safety |
A generic policy downloaded from the internet is rarely enough, because it cannot describe your risks, your processes or the people you support. Yours has to say who you support and how you work.
Core Elements Every Safeguarding Policy Must Include
A strong safeguarding policy for a care provider should cover:
A clear statement of your commitment to safeguarding, and zero tolerance of abuse
The types of abuse and neglect that apply to your service and client group
What every member of staff must do, including your designated safeguarding lead
Your internal process for raising and recording a concern
Your duty to refer concerns to the local authority, and to the police where needed
How you work with other agencies during a safeguarding investigation
Your approach to making safeguarding personal, which keeps the person at the centre
How you review and update the policy after an incident, or after a change in the law
Some providers keep safeguarding separate from whistleblowing, allegations against staff, and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Others combine them. Either way works. What matters is that the content is complete, and that the links between sections are easy to find.
Differences Between a Care Home and Domiciliary Care Safeguarding Policy
The principles are the same in any care setting. How care is delivered is not, and your policy needs to show that.
Area | Care Home | Domiciliary Care |
|---|---|---|
Main environment risks | Communal living, shared spaces | Isolated individuals in private homes |
Peer-to-peer abuse | Must be addressed, as residents interact daily | Less relevant, as service users are seen separately |
Financial abuse risk | High. Residents may have limited oversight of their finances | High. Lone workers may have access to homes and finances |
DoLS | Must address how you manage and review approvals | Usually less relevant in a home care context, but still worth considering where capacity and restrictions may be an issue. |
Staff visibility | Easier to monitor, as staff share the building | Harder to monitor, as workers operate alone |
In a care home, your policy also needs to cover your building layout, visiting arrangements and shift patterns. Each one changes how quickly you spot a concern.
In a domiciliary care service, your policy must address:
Lone worker risks, and how a worker escalates a concern while out on a round
The risk to people who may see almost nobody else that week
Concerns where the source is a family member or unpaid carer, which is common and sensitive in home care
Common Mistakes That Trip Providers Up at Inspection
The most frequent failures have nothing to do with missing content, and everything to do with policies that no longer match practice. Watch out for these:
Staff cannot name the designated safeguarding lead. Write the name in the policy.
The referral procedure names a local authority team you have never worked with. Check your local contacts are right.
The policy has not been reviewed in years. Out of date policies get flagged in inspection reports.
Vague timescales. "We will pass on concerns appropriately" does not say when, or to whom.
No out-of-hours route. A care worker finds a concern at 11pm on a Sunday. Your policy should tell them exactly what to do.
No Safeguarding Adults Board contact details for your area
Check that your policy mentions the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and what it means for consent and best interests decisions. Many providers cover this in a separate MCA policy. Inspectors still expect your safeguarding policy to name the link and point staff to it.
Keeping Your Safeguarding Policy Up to Date
Safeguarding guidance changes, and your policy must keep pace. Watch for these:
Deprivation of liberty. The Supreme Court changed the test on 2 June 2026. There is no longer an "acid test". Any policy that still quotes one is out of date. Our guide to DoLS after the 2026 ruling covers what replaced it.
Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS). Proposed to replace DoLS, but DoLS is still the current framework.
Local Safeguarding Adults Board updates. Your board may change its joint working procedures at any point.
It is good practice to review your safeguarding policy:
At least once a year
After any safeguarding incident or near miss
After any change in the law or official guidance
After any real change to your service model or client group
Each review should be documented, dated, and signed off by your registered manager.
Your training records should show that staff have seen the current version, and ideally that they signed for it. A sign-off sheet or a learning system record is the clearest proof for CQC. If the policy changes, everyone who signed the old version must sign the new one.
If you are building your policy set ahead of CQC registration or an inspection, HeroDocs provides professionally written, CQC-aligned safeguarding policies for care homes and domiciliary care services, updated as the law and guidance change.
Sources
Department of Health and Social Care, UK Supreme Court 2026 judgment on what constitutes a deprivation of liberty
Last checked: 28 September 2026.
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