This year, we have progressed our local authority assessment programme and recently published the latest assessment reports. The reports highlight good practice and areas for improvement in each local authority by looking at nine areas spread across four themes to check how well each authority is meeting its Care Act duties.
We have heard feedback from local authorities that our assessments help them make immediate improvements, by identifying strengths and where gaps may exist.
We are currently seeing the following themes:
- A need for better unpaid carers’ support.
- A need for a greater understanding of equality and diversity issues in local populations.
- An increasing focus from local authorities to prevent, reduce and delay care needs for their local populations.
- Continued impact of recruitment pressures, particularly for occupational therapists.
We will be sharing more as our reports continue to publish over the coming months. Our aim is to drive improvement for care providers and people using services.
Continuous improvement
Assessing how local authorities are meeting their Care Act duties is a new responsibility for us. Our approach has been co-designed with the Local Government Association (LGA), Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), provider trade associations, voluntary sector organisations and people using services.
We have tested, fully piloted and evaluated our approach to incorporate any learning before beginning assessments. We continue to learn and iterate as we go to ensure our processes remain efficient and meaningful.
To continuously improve, we are considering how to greater capture providers’ views in our assessments. We will be seeking input on how we might refine our provider survey, which is an integral part of the assessment process and helps us identify areas for further consideration during on-site activity. We will be exploring this further in focused workshops during the autumn.
Our current focus is to establish a baseline of quality across all 153 local authorities with adult social care responsibilities. Following this, we will begin our longer-term approach to regular ongoing assessments and will look to our stakeholders to help shape this soon.
Improving operational effectiveness
In my last column, I updated on work to address the interim findings of the review into our operational effectiveness, led by Dr Penelope Dash. This includes increasing the number of inspections, increasing the number of people working in registration to improve waiting times and improving our provider portal.
The purpose of the review was to examine the suitability of CQC’s new single assessment framework methodology. Although we are assessing local authorities against their Care Act duties using the single assessment framework, there are clear differences between our local authority assessments and provider assessments. We will be considering the final report’s findings relating to local authority assessments and how to incorporate them into our continuous learning and improvement.
Highlighting outstanding care
We are often asked what ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ care looks like and have been delighted to share an example of this in a recent report following an inspection of a residential care home for adults with a learning disability and mental health support needs.
Azalea House was rated ‘Outstanding’ after finding a person-centred service where managers and staff ensured people received the best possible care. Leaders supported staff with robust policies and processes, enabling them to deliver safe, effective and compassionate care. The service’s consistent staff team meant it knew people living at the service well, providing support that met people’s needs.
This translated into positive experiences for the people living at the care home, who told us they felt valued, respected and cared for. Other providers may wish to look at our report to see if there is anything they can learn to promote improvements in their own services.
How do you deliver safe, effective and compassionate care in your setting? Leave a comment on this article or join the conversation to share your thoughts.
Mary Cridge is Director of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Email: [email protected]
X: @CQCProf