Health and Social Care providers across England are preparing for the new CQC Single Assessment Framework due to launch in 2023. Early adopters of the new framework have begun their journey in meeting the new Quality Statements and using the 6 evidence categories that have been released.
Here are some examples to take into consideration when reviewing the evidence you currently collate, to help you identify any areas for improvement:
People’s experience of health and care services
The CQC will be looking to seek evidence regarding the lived experience of care that people using your services and how good the care is perceived to be. This evidence should be regularly sought from the people using services, their family, friends and advocates, and will be weighted equally with other evidence categories.
Reviewing your feedback mechanisms is critical to ensure that surveys and feedback collection points are easily understandable, accessible and up to date. Any thank you letters, feedback emails, cards and surveys should be date-stamped and stored appropriately. It is also key to ensure questions asked are not leading or have multiple questions in one.
If you do find it difficult to organise, schedule and complete your regular feedback surveys, Care Improvement Associates and Care Research have collaborated to bring a service that conducts the surveys and provides helpful summary reports that can be shared with service users, the workforce and the leadership teams. Click here for more information.
Other evidence to consider:
- A clear, easily accessible complaints policy, template and guidance
- Hold regular meetings with people who use services to collate feedback
- Provide evidence that regular information and newsletters are available
- Regular surveys to encourage people who use services to share their feedback and opinions
The tips above should also be taken into consideration when collating feedback from staff and leaders and feedback from partners.
Examples of evidence that should be provided under this category are:
- Results from staff surveys
- Interviews with staff members or groups of staff
- Interviews with the leadership of individual services and the organisation
- Evidence from provider’s self-assessments
- Compliments and concerns raised
- Trainee surveys
- Staff focus groups – it is recommended that an impartial person is responsible for taking the minutes of these meetings
- Action plans that address improvements that need to be made following surveys and feedback
- Summaries of key themes identified and an action plan with timescales to address these
Observations
When CQC do conduct an onsite inspection, they will be looking to observe care delivery, the care environment, equipment, and they will also be speaking with people who use the service and staff, as well as observing how staff interact with each other.
To provide evidence that observations are conducted internally regularly, it is key to take into consideration the observation checklists that are being used. Are the same checklists for every staff member? Are observations conducted as per the schedule and are these fair? Ensure this evidence is collated and stored regularly, as well as follow-ups and action plans that are taking place post-observation.
Now is also a great time to review staff observation policies and templates and ensure they are fit for purpose.
Processes
CQC will be reviewing the processes in place that are carried out to deliver care that is safe and meets people’s needs. Their assessment will focus on how effective policies and procedures are and will look at information from the provider and data sources that measure processes. Below are some examples of what they may consider:
- Data from national clinical audits
- Indicators from patient-level data sets
- Waiting times
- Infection prevention control
- Reported incidents/notifications
- Reviews of care records
It is essential that accurate records are kept and that these are reviewed and updated regularly. Ensuring data collection spreadsheets are kept up to date will enable you to post these regularly to the CQC portal and have these to hand during an onsite inspection.
Here at Care Improvement Associates, we regularly work with our clients to conduct independent process reviews. This enables clients to engage with a care quality specialist who can highlight any areas of improvement, give guidance and advice and write a clear action plan for the leadership team and workforce to use as part of their care quality framework and improvement plans.
Outcomes
The focus of outcomes is on how care procedures affect people. They discuss how people’s physical, functional, or psychological status has been impacted by care.
When evaluating outcome measures, we take into account both the service’s context and the measure’s specifics.
Various outcome measures include:
- Rates of mortality and readmission
- Rates of emergency admissions, patient-reported outcomes following hip surgery, rates of infection control, and quality-of-life evaluations.
When reviewing this evidence category, it is always useful to stay up to date on the latest national outcomes or research findings and use these when setting the outcome measures for your organisation. In using this data, you will be able to assess and compare; this will highlight any areas of improvement and feed into your quality improvement plans.
Evidence Scoring
As CQC are moving away from assessing at a single point in time, they will likely assess different areas of the framework on an ongoing basis. Any changes in evidence category scores can then update the existing quality statement score, which can, in turn, have an impact on the rating.
CQC will give a score for each required evidence category:
4 = Evidence shows an exceptional standard of care
3 = Evidence shows a good standard of care
2 = Evidence shows shortfalls in the standard of care
1 = Evidence shows significant shortfalls in the standard of care
The stages below will be used by CQC to produce a key question and overall rating for a service:
- Review evidence types within the required evidence categories for each quality statement
- Apply a score to each of these evidence categories
- Combine these required evidence category scores to give a score for the related quality statement
- Combine the quality statement scores to give a total score for the relevant key question
- This score generates a rating for each key question
- Aggregate the key question ratings to give the overall rating
Tel: 01723 374620
Email: info@theciagroup.co.uk
Website: www.theciagroup.co.uk
