HR consultancy specialising in health and social care
Strategic HR & HR Quality Improvement
Specialist HR consultancy for care homes, nursing homes, domiciliary care agencies and registered managers — grounded in CQC regulations, employment law, and the realities of running a care service.
Your lead consultant
Kathryn Barrett
Co-Founder & Director | LLB (Hons) | Chartered MCIPD
Kathryn is a Co-Founder and Director of MDT Online and a Strategic HR and Employment Law Consultant with a background in both law and people practice. She works closely with business owners, directors and senior leaders in health and social care, advising on complex employment matters, organisational risk, people strategy, policy and organisational development. With particular experience in the regulated healthcare sector, Kathryn combines legal knowledge with a practical understanding of care business operations — helping leaders navigate complex decisions while balancing commercial priorities, CQC compliance and their people.
Who we work with
We work exclusively with health and social care providers — which means our HR advice is always calibrated to your regulatory environment, not adapted from a generic template.
Care homes
Residential and nursing homes requiring CQC-compliant HR frameworks and safe staffing evidence.
Domiciliary care agencies
Home care providers navigating safe recruitment, DBS management, and workforce retention.
Registered managers
Managers who need practical HR support to meet the Well-led key question and reduce personal risk.
Supported living providers
Organisations supporting adults with learning disabilities, autism, and complex needs.
NHS & primary care teams
Clinical teams requiring employment law advice, workforce strategy, and engagement projects.
New care businesses
Start-up care providers building HR infrastructure from scratch ahead of CQC registration.
HR consultancy that goes beyond the policy document
Safe Recruitment & Transparent Oversight
CQC Regulation 19 requires providers to ensure all staff are fit and proper persons. We help you build robust recruitment frameworks — from safer recruitment policies and pre-employment checks to DBS management, reference verification, and induction structures that evidence compliance from day one.
Team Dynamics & Engagement Projects
Understanding what is really happening inside your team is the foundation of sustainable quality. Central to this is our Team Mapping approach — a structured process in which we speak with every member of your team on a 1:1 basis, either face to face or through an online portal, to genuinely understand their experience, concerns, and ideas. This goes beyond surveys: it is a listening exercise that builds trust and surfaces the real picture of morale, communication, and psychological safety. Alongside Team Mapping, we design and facilitate broader engagement projects — culture workshops and facilitated sessions — that turn insight into action.
Audit & Framework Improvement
We audit your existing HR frameworks against CQC's Well-led key question and current employment law. From appraisal and supervision structures to disciplinary and grievance procedures, we identify gaps, benchmark against best practice, and co-produce an improvement plan with clear timelines.
Training, Education & Staff Wellbeing
HR quality improvement does not stop at policy. We build the training and education layer that embeds change — mandatory and values-based learning, leadership development, and wellbeing programmes that reduce turnover, improve retention, and create a culture people want to stay in.
Built around CQC regulations
Every piece of HR work we do is mapped to the CQC fundamental standards and the Well-led key question — so your evidence is always inspection-ready.
Fit and proper persons employed
Robust pre-employment checks, DBS, references, and ongoing fitness monitoring.
Good governance
HR data, workforce metrics, and oversight systems that evidence transparent leadership.
Staffing
Dependency tools, skill mix analysis, and safe staffing frameworks.
Culture and leadership
Team engagement, values alignment, and leadership capability building.
Our HR improvement process
HR Diagnostic
We review your current policies, practices, and workforce data against CQC expectations and employment law — giving you a clear, honest baseline.
Engagement & Insight
We listen to your team through structured engagement projects, identifying what is working, what is not, and where the real risks lie.
Framework Design
We co-produce improved policies, procedures, and audit tools — practical documents your managers can actually use, not shelf-fillers.
Training & Embedding
We build the training and wellbeing layer that turns policy into practice — ensuring change sticks and your team feels supported through it.
CQC-ready recruitment frameworks
Improved staff retention
Stronger team culture
Evidenced compliance
Common questions about HR consultancy in social care
Everything you need to know before working with a specialist HR consultant in health and social care.
More questions? Get in touch with Kathryn directly.
Related reading
Let's talk about your workforce
Whether you need a full HR audit, a team engagement project, safe recruitment support, or targeted employment law advice — we're here to help. Get in touch with Kathryn and the team today.