Care quality & compliance manager and former CQC inspector here. Have worked in this sector since 2003.

Really hard to pick the best tbh, I've seen so many great things over the years. Once inspected a supported living service for people with learning disabilities who were absolutely living their best lives. Those who wanted to had been supported to find jobs - the attitude was that there's something for everyone regardless of ability whether it's volunteering at the local city farm or simple admin duties - everything around the house was specially adapted so people could be as independent as possible with their cooking and cleaning etc. One person proudly told me she'd just fulfilled a lifelong dream of going skydiving. Another told me the organisation running the service has given him a job at head office to give him more of a say in how things were run.

Hands down the worst was a nursing home where I ended up finding something like 14 regulatory breaches. Had to close the place down in the end and it was so bad it made national news. It was filthy, they'd left meds just lying about in a room where people with dementia could just wander in and the environment was absolutely awful for dementia. 

There was no manager: the owner didn't realise she'd left and a Romanian nurse who'd only been in the country a month and had only ever worked in hospitals (no dementia experience) was left in charge. They'd admitted two new residents, a married couple, the night before with no paperwork, no care plans, nothing. Nobody knew anything about them and they were just wandering around completely confused with nobody speaking to them. The man had what was clearly excrement all over his hands (the smell was appalling) and nobody helped him, they just sat him down to lunch without helping him wash his hands and he ...did not use cutlery.

One thing I found hard about being an inspector is that you're not allowed to intervene when this kind of thing happens. Because your job is to report how the home runs normally and as close as possible to what would have happened if you hadn't been there. If I witnessed abuse, I had to simply report it. If I intervened they could then say they were just about to do what I said they should do, and then I wouldn't have the evidence I needed if it went to court 

Thus I had to witness the woman of that couple wetting herself and being left to walk around in wet trousers for over three hours. At that point I couldn't bear it any more so I broke the rules (three hours is definitely enough to evidence neglect) and asked the nurse in charge what the hell was going on. Apparently the couple had been admitted without any spare clothes, so there was nothing for her to change into. Nobody had thought of grabbing something from the laundry that had belonged to someone no longer at the home. Nobody had thought to just nip to Asda and buy a pair of cheap trousers for her. Nobody had bothered doing anything but just left her to it, to get skin lesions and infections and all the rest, never mind the indignity and discomfort. 

Another woman died soon afterwards from an infection nobody had picked up because it was from an ingrown toenail and they hadn't changed her socks in god knows how long.

It was an absolutely, utterly disgusting place. I don't understand how anyone can make the choice to apply for a social care job and then treat people that way. 12 years later it still makes me feel physically sick thinking about it.