Local care provider Carefound Home Care stars in new national guide to help other care services improve.
Carefound Home Care have played a key role in creating a new guide designed to help social care employers across the country secure a good or outstanding rating.
Workforce development agency Skills for Care asked Carefound Home Care to become one of their expert partners to help create a ‘Good and outstanding care guide’ to help employers to think about what they can do to secure a good or outstanding rating when they are inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Skills for Care wanted Carefound Home Care to share how they were rated outstanding and what they do day in and day out to make sure they deliver outstanding person centred care. Carefound Home Care shared their knowledge and experiences to help other employers who want to improve their rating.
The expert feedback gathered by Skills for Care means the guide includes recommendations from good and outstanding providers like Carefound Home Care, cost effective solutions and tips on what to avoid across a range of themes linked to the CQC’s five key questions.
The guide’s learning and best practice examples offers a ‘checklist’ of what good or outstanding care looks like. Its then up to employers to think about how they compare or consider how they can implement similar thinking in a way that that best fits them.
Lorna Dawber, Home Care Manager at Carefound Home Care in Harrogate, said:
When Skills for Care asked us to get involved we were very happy to help as we are very proud to have been rated outstanding and amongst the top 1% of care providers in the country by the CQC. We are also aware of how much hard work goes into getting there.
It is vital that the standards of elderly care services continue to improve as an ageing population drives increasing demand and we seek to reduce reliance on NHS services.
This guide offers a wealth of knowledge that is designed to help any employer be a good or outstanding care provider and we hope that sharing our experiences as an outstanding rated provider contributes to this.
In developing the guide, Skills for Care reviewed more than 250 CQC inspection reports and have included further examples of what has impressed inspectors. Quotes taken directly from inspection reports highlight what good and poor practice looks like. Services can use these comments to benchmark whether they are doing things well, or to decide where they can make improvements well in advance of the CQC inspection.
One of the key things inspectors were clear about was that services really need to think about how they best prepare for an inspection. Services need to be prepared and know what they need to demonstrate and showcase, as well as being transparent about how they have learnt from things that have not gone as well.
Andrea Sutcliffe, CQC’s Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, said:
At a time when we know there are many challenges facing providers in their delivery of safe, effective and high quality care for people; encouraging improvement, innovation and sustainability has never been so important.
I would like to thank Skills for Care for producing such a fantastic guide that shines a light on the good and outstanding practice my inspectors see on a daily basis – a standard that over 75% of care services across the country are achieving so far.
But that isn’t the case everywhere and collectively we need to do all we can to ensure everyone understands that quality really does matter. Services that focus on the needs of individuals, support and value their staff and always try to improve are more likely to deliver high quality care we would be happy for our loved ones to receive.
I hope providers will make full use of this resource so they can make improvements for the benefit of people using services, their families and carers – which is what we all want to see.
To find out more about the ‘Good and outstanding care guide’ go to www.skillsforcare.org.uk/go.
