Useful Care Terms
CQC, RQIA, Care Commission/SCRC, CSSIW
What is it?
| CQC in England: | Care Quality Commission |
| CSSIW in Wales: | Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales |
| Care Commission/SCRC: | Scotland |
| RQIA Northern Ireland: | Regulations and Quality Inspection Authority |
What does it do?
CQC, RQIA, Care Commission/SCRC, CSSIW are the government bodies which are responsible for the registration and inspection of care services in each region of the UK.
The regulators both register new services and inspect existing ones.
Private sector and Council run care services in the UK are governed by the Care Standards Act 2000. With one or two very rare exceptions all services must register with the relevant Registration Authority; to provide care and not be registered is a criminal offence. A person with a criminal conviction is not normally able to own or run a care service.
How does the UKQCS QMS fit it?
The UKQCS QMS contains up to 240 policies and procedures, arranged into six sections (administration, care, catering, housekeeping and laundry, maintenance and personal) which set out in simple terms what the care provider must do in every area of operation, in order to meet the regulations.
Therefore it is important for a service to get registration and inspection right, and that is the main need into which to sell our services. A registration authority can close a home down, or from 1st April, fine them heavily.
The inspection report is a public document, published online.
What is it?
QA is a set of processes by which an organisation ensures that it carries out its functions to an agreed standard, which is acceptable to its customers.
It is not quality checking/audit. That is a lesser process.
What does it do?
QA requires that an organisation fully specify what it is going to do for a customer, then design all of the processes which will deliver that outcome, then carry them out, then check that they were carried out to the agreed standard, then rectify the process if they were not done to standard.
This is often called the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle.
It is not satisfactory to simply check that the customer is satisfied (e.g. by audit or questionnaire) because of the rest of the defined process does not exist, no one will know what to go back and change if a problem is found.
How does QMS fit it?
The UKQCS QMS is what is technically called a Total Quality Management System. Every part of it i.e. every policy, forms part of a matrix of processes which are designed overall to achieve an outcome that the customer wants.
In terms of the customers as defined as the care receiver, the key processes in this are the Recruitment process and the Care Planning process.
The recruitment process is intended to ensure that the right staff are employed, and they are properly qualified and trained.
The care planning process is intended to ensure that the right staff are given the right information about what each individual care receiver needs, and is told how to deliver what they need.
Both of these processes feature very heavily in the QMS
The rest of the QMS is aimed at satisfying other "customers", such as the registration authority, health and safety regulators etc, in a way that supports and does not conflict with the main task i.e. the giving of care to the individual standard required by the care receiver.
What is it?
It is an international standard for Quality Assurance. Specifically ISO: 9000
What does it do?
It sets out standards which are recommended for the administrative processes which are needed to achieve Quality Assurance.
Firms can ask to be audited against the standard, and if they pass they become "ISO Accredited"
How does QMS fit it?
The QMS was written by an accredited ISO Auditor, and the principles used throughout the QMS match those of ISO: 9000, therefore a user of the QMS should find it relatively easy to achieve ISO accreditation.
What is it?
It is a UK standard for the training and development of people. It is a component of QA, inasmuch that effective training and development of people is essential in order to achieve a quality outcome
What does it do?
It sets out a set of standards for the recruitment, induction, supervision, appraisal, communication with, training and development of all employees of an organisation.
Firms can ask to be audited against the standards, and if they pass they become "IIP Accredited".
How does QMS fit it?
The QMS was written by a member of an IIP awarding panel, with intimate knowledge of IIP and the principles used throughout the QMS match those of IIP, therefore a user of the QMS should find it relatively easy to achieve IIP accreditation.
What is it?
The Annual Quality Assurance Assessment, a large form filled in be the care service, and then sent to CQC for them to assess.
What does it do?
In England CQC is moving towards a self assessment model i.e. the care service has to demonstrate to CQC that they have very robust planning, standards setting, auditing and rectification procedures, which Assure Quality. Those that do demonstrate adequate systems benefit from a lighter touch inspection regime, and those that do not t will find themselves the object of much unwanted attention from CQC.
How does QMS fit it?
Those care services who return a satisfactory AQAA will gain from lighter regulation and higher Star Rating, therefore it is important to get the process right. Much of the information to be returned is specific to the service, and has to be filled in by them, but one large section requires reference to the review dates of a large number of policies and procedures. The UKQCS CMS provides the user care service with up to date policies which make the satisfactory completion of this important section much easier.
What is it?
The HSE is responsible for ensuring that all firms comply with health and safety legislation.
What does it do?
The HSE requires firms to take reasonable steps to make sure that their customers, employees and anyone else affected by the firm's activities and products are not harmed in any way by those activities.
In the care sector, the HSE does not regularly inspect services, but it has to be told if certain things happen, e.g. accidents which cause more than 3 days absences, and breakages of bones, any harm to a member of the public, and harm to a resident/care receiver.
CQC and the others will report anything they see or hear of which concerns them to the HSE.
HSE also requires that every firm have a comprehensive health and safety policy.
How does QMS fit it?
In order to "take reasonable steps" every firm has to carry out an overall risk assessment, to identify the risks to people from their business, and then assess the risk and come up with a plan to minimise the risk down to "reasonable" if not eliminate it.
The QMS sets out chapter and verse in the form of a Policy, and all the forms needed to carry out the assessments.
The QMS also has scattered through it the instructions to employees which will help them to avoid putting people at risk e.g. checking the temperature of baths before use to avoid scalding risk.
What is it?
The acronym given to the process of the Protection of Vulnerable Adults.
What does it do?
It is a set of processes which in the first instance help ensure that people employed in care are not abusers, or barred from working in the care sector.
E.g. employers have to take up criminal record checks for all people employed in a care service. They also have to check if they are on the register of banned carers and nurses.
How does QMS fit it?
The QMS recruitment system hand holds the user through a set of processes, beyond those required by law, which are designed to avoid employing someone who may be an abuser, and certainly avoid employing someone without the relevant record checks.
What is it?
The General Social Care Council
What does it do?
Care workers are slowly being made to register on a professional register, in order to ensure that there is a growing level of professionalism in the sector, and that banned workers are controlled.
How does QMS fit it?
The QMS recruitment system hand holds the user through a set of processes to make sure that all the documents published by the GSCC which need to be given to employees actually are given to them.
What is it?
Care planning is the process by which a care service delivers the individualised care services to an individual customer.
What does it do?
The care plan is effectively a legal document. A care service is required by the Care Standards Act to assess a client before they take them on, certify in writing that they have done so, and to have reached a professional opinion that the service can meet all of the needs of the client, therefore can offer a service to them.
This is often called "pre-assessment".
On admission/take-on, the pre-assessment is expanded into a Care Plan, which looks at each need identified and comes up with a plan of how the service is to respond to that need and meet it. The Care Plan is looked at and filled in daily, even by the hour, must be reviewed monthly at the least, and is a dynamic document set that in effect drives and control the whole individual care process within an overall care service. The Care Plan is by far and away the most important document in any care service. Without best practice care planning, no care service can achieve quality.
How does QMS fit it?
The UKQCS care plans are designed to hand hold the user through a set of highly compliant process and help them achieve good quality and highly personalised outcomes. The UKQCS care plan system is generally recognised as one of the best available, being up to the job, but easy to use, and most importantly it encourages users to promote personalisation. Technically the UKQCS Care Plan is based on a mix the Roper-Logan and Tierney models of community care, highly developed over time, and contains all the assessment, recording and review processes required to lead carers or nurses where appropriate through best practice processes.
What is it?
Personalised care occurs when care and/or support decisions are tailored to the specific needs of the individual by taking into account the person’s age, gender, race, environment, quality of life preferences, social history and background, and other factors that may be relevant to a high-quality plan of care. It involves compiling a large amount of data information in order to identify opportunities and risks and drive decisions for establishing a personalised treatment plan. The service user will in all cases be central to the process of gathering the data and information, and will have a high degree of control over that gathering, and the use to which the data is put. This may be further reinforced by the use of language such as “my” instead of “the”, to indicate to readers of the care plans which result from the data gathering and analysis that this is a highly personal process, focussed around the needs of the service user and not those of the organisation or the staff.
What does it do?
An effective personalised care or support service will deliver services which the service user feels involved in and in control of, rather than the “victim” of.
Where does QMS fit in?
Because the UKQCS Care Planning system was originally based on community care models, which are generally much less influenced by medical model processes and much more by socialisation processes, and has been continuously developed over the years to match changing expectations of personalised care, the format leads users through processes which are far more likely to result in a personalised care plan, dependent on the skill of the care planner of course.
