The pressure to improve safety and quality is growing exponentially. On one hand, you have consumers that are increasingly vocal and used to taking to social media (think Twitter or Facebook). One the other hand, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is pursuing inspections and warning notices more and more aggressively. Via the CQC website you can now not only view inspection results in great detail, the website will even provide names of similar (read competing..) providers.
Video: See how psMOBILE can support your next inspection
Care Quality Commission 2013/14 Report
For the year 2013/14, the CQC increased the number of scheduled and unscheduled inspections by 50%. Over 30,000 locations were inspected and nearly 1,500 warning notices issued (see infographic below). In addition to incorporating adult social care, there has been an increase in the focus on community services (both private and NHS).
Click to view the CQC Annual Report 2013/14
Impact on providers?
What impact will an increasingly potent and confident CQC have on providers in the years to come? We set out the key issues to consider.
- Having a ‘policy’ is not enough… CQC is focussing on observations, interviews and sample tests. The focus is progressively more on actual care delivery. Can you pick a random service user/patient and show the initial assessment? Or document the date when the care plan was last reviewed?
- Service user/patient views increasingly influencing CQC: According to the plan 2014/15, the CQC is working on improving processes of soliciting more feedback and complaints from the person receiving care, family and relatives.
- Risk of social media storm: Understanding ‘customer’ satisfaction and dealing with complaints and incidents quickly has become even more important in today’s social media frenzy. Dissatisfied customers can take to Twitter or Facebook and create reputational damage in matter of hours or days.
- Compliance monitoring integrated with day-to-day service delivery: In the past, monitoring of compliance and quality control was often seen as a separate process from managing a service. In today’s complex world you need to keep your finger on the pulse. It is highly unlikely you can deliver effective monitoring for medium to large organisations without an IT solution that both helps facilitate service delivery and provides real-time monitoring of compliance across a number of safety and quality indicators.
Non-Compliance…as seen by the CQC
Reducing the CQC-Risk with psHEALTH
Our Intelligent Care Delivery platform enables organisations to transform services delivered in the home or community. It combines care planning, outcome tracking, time & attendance verification and is accessible via a web portal and mobile apps for field workers. Our focus is on reducing operating costs (click to see details on cost savings) and ensuring a safe, high-quality CQC-compliant service.
In the table below we set out how psHEALTH can help you and ensure you are prepared for the next CQC inspection.
| Standard | Support Examples |
| Treating people with respect and involving them in their care |
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| Providing care, treatment and support that meets people’s needs |
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| Caring for people safely and protecting them from harm |
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| Staffing |
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| Quality and suitability of management |
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