Nice work if you can get it
Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission.
Sorry if you get bored when I say I’ve had a busy week, but so often it’s true! I do get to have the best kind of “busy-ness” though — the sort where you know what you are doing is important but can be fun and interesting too.
Getting it sorted
The beginning of last week was all about preparations for the big changes that will happen in April. This included my “Getting It Sorted” meeting — where those of us involved in operational planning and methodology development met to take stock and prioritise next steps.
We are making good progress to deliver some key objectives by April; for example:
- We will establish the Adult Social Care Directorate
- Wave 1 of our new inspections will have locations to inspect and inspectors ready to do it
- The provider handbooks setting out how we will inspect and make ratings judgements will be ready for consultation
I’m not saying it isn’t tight or that everything will go completely smoothly, but with my fingers well and truly crossed, I think we’ll be okay!
Of course there’ll still be lots to do — more of that another time.
Not bored at the Board
Wednesday was the Board meeting — you can watch the video here. Constructive challenges and good debate were the order of the day. The Adult Social Care report starts just before the hour mark and includes a discussion about how we need to listen and act on people’s experience of poor services, particularly for people with learning disabilities.
But then I got out and about — hurrah!
Off to Gloucester
First was a long-planned visit to the Gloucestershire Care Homes Support Team run by Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust.
This is a great initiative, bringing together a multidisciplinary team dedicated to improving practice in local care homes through training, support and some individual interventions. A member of the team spotted me on TV last year and invited me to come and listen to and learn from their experiences.
We had a really good discussion based on our shared ambition to improve services and their insight about what matters most in regulating and inspecting adult social care was really helpful. Key points I took away included:
- Importance of a holistic view of the home
- Listen to the experience of the people living there
- Focus on the quality of the staff
- Unannounced visits are important
- Ratings should be clearly dated
Off to Staffordshire
Then on Friday I was off again to meet colleagues at Staffordshire County Council and the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Trust Partnership Trust.
This invitation came about via Twitter — the chief executive of the trust, Stuart Poynor is an avid tweeter and so is his professional head of social work, Andrew Errington. Plus, we have a shared love of football (Andrew is also a Sunderland fan but, after this weekend, the less said about that, the better).
I started the day meeting the Cabinet Member for Care, Alan White who was keen to know where the examples of good practice are. This is something I hope that our new ratings system will help to identify.
This was followed by a session hosted by Ian Benson focusing on the issues for Staffordshire in commissioning services and safeguarding. I have mainly worked in London, so it was good to be reminded of the challenges faced by a largely dispersed rural and small town community. Travel time for home care services is just one obvious example.
Over lunch I met John Maddox, the motivating force behind the establishment of the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub for Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent. I am the latest in a long line of visitors who have been to learn from their practical and proactive approach to information-sharing to support and protect people in vulnerable circumstances.
John speaks passionately about what can be achieved when organisational barriers are broken down and we concentrate on the individual — as you can see in the video here.
Then finally, Andrew took me to the Trust headquarters (on the way we saw a buzzard — not a common sight in London!).
I was honoured that the Trust had set up a market stall where staff were able to tell me all about their impressive range of integrated services. The roll-out of mobile technology to support virtual team working was very interesting, together with their award winning services for homeless people and support for people with learning disabilities among so many other initiatives.
I would like to thank everyone I met in Gloucester and Staffordshire for their time, enthusiasm and insight. I learnt loads!
Back to work…
The weekend was spent entertaining friends and their three boys (10, 15 and 17) doing London touristy things. So, despite another busy week in prospect, I’m coming back to work for a rest!!
Originally published at www.cqc.org.uk.
