Vision of a New Albion?

Fundamental Change to the Regulation of Adult Social Services and Health - TAKE NOTE!

There is a change which measures 8 on the Richter scale coming to Health Services and Adult Social Care. Heading this change is the Care Quality Commission which has drawn up stringent standards and values that every health trust, local authority adult social services and commissioned independent or private organisations will have to meet to register their practice. Those not registered will NOT be able to practice.

The Date for this change is just under ten weeks away - on April 1st 2010.

The Care Quality Commission says:

“The regulation of health and adult social care is changing. Subject to legislation, all health and adult social care providers who provide regulated activities will be required by law to be registered with the Care Quality Commission. The new registration system comes into force on 1 April 2010 for NHS trusts (including primary care trusts as providers) and on 1 October 2010 for adult social care and independent healthcare providers (registration under the Care Standards Act 2000 continues until 30 September 2010).”

The tome containing the standards, values and outcomes required to meet the registration criteria are in “Guidance about compliance: Essential standards of quality and safety” and it can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/ya86tjo

This change undoubtedly promises a good deal (anyway you like to read that) for service users and carers and there is surely a role for service users and carers in monitoring CQC’s performance because, as a QUANGO, they are not accountable to anyone more than the general public (technically they are accountable to the Secretary of State but when have you known that to happen).

And I am already picking up anomalies!

I ordered a hard copy of the above Guidance - which hasn’t yet arrived after a good week. In addition I also ordered what I thought to be another companion publication report entitled “Encouraging Improvement and Stopping Poor Care.” This has arrived - one A4 sheet folded to make an A5 leaflet. OK, so what’s your problem? The first problem is: it arrived rattling around in a large A4 sized envelope with a hard cardboard backing - it must have been somewhat extravagant to post. And singly, whereas it could have been bundled with the main tome. Multiply this a few times and you have just one source of inefficiency and misused finance.

Worse that that, when I started to read the leaflet the first words are: “We know that as a provider of care services, you want to improve the quality of care that you give people.“ YUK! Is the CQC a collection of lickspittles or are they all ineffably naive in there? (Who doesn’t know that providers’, especially private providers which are in the majority, primary aim is to improve the quantity of their profits).

The plus side is that the rest of the leaflet is straightforward and blunt: ”You are responsible for making any improvements needed to ensure that there are good outcomes for people using your service and that people are safe...If we think that people who use your service are at immediate risk, we will take quick and urgent action within our powers.“ The ‘outcomes’ required are detailed in Ministerial Regulations and the above Guidance.

The message for service users and carers is clear and plain: if you see poor standards, don’t hesitate to report them to CQC and then monitor how CQC deals with the problem. Huge improvement in service delivery? It’s in our hands.

Mike