The Care Quality Commission and you
In a recent presentation by Colin Noble (https://askcolinnoble.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/the-white-box/) at the Care Providers Network (www.careprovidersnetwork.co.uk) event in November he highlighted how the Care Quality Commission is quietly ramping up operations, in a similar way to Ofsted.
There was apparently talk of adult social care services simply being registered with the CQC and with no inspections or regulation. With some recent high profile failures this has been turned upside down, and the CQC has been hiring inspectors, re-writing it’s policies and introduced new inspection guidelines, Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) and ratings.
Interestingly there is no “Adequate” rating – so there is no incentive to just “get by” as a service provider. The ratings run from Inadequate, Requires Improvement, Good and Outstanding. The inspector will offer guidance on how to improve up to Good, however if you want to aim for an “Outstanding” rating then you’ll need to excel in every area of your service.
It is only a matter of time before services will be obliged to display their rating on the entrance, much like the food hygiene ratings for restaurants, cafes, et al. At this point, it will be imperative for your service to get the higher ratings.
Colin also astutely noted that we are about to enter a purple patch for retirement, with many on final salary pensions, large amounts of equity, and generally gained through boom times. This group are also more informed, and more demanding of what is acceptable. This is a double edged sword, on the one hand there are an increasing number of those requiring care, however their demands will become greater.
Can your service meet the new demands from both the CQC and your potential clients?
Not only do we provide cloud based software, Curato, to help manage services but we also have a large network of consultants and professionals who can help with every aspect – get in touch and see how we can help.