The Care Quality Commission recently announced changes to its assessment framework. The new assessments will be more focused on residents and people.
Here are the key take-aways to help you prepare for CQC inspections:
- Eliminating several assessments in favour of a single assessment framework will cut down on duplication and streamline the evidence gathering process.
- The strategy will continue to be centred on the quality ratings and the five fundamental questions, such as "Is your service safe, effective, responsive, well-led, and caring?"
- To concentrate on particular subject areas inside each key question, Key Lines of Enquiries (KLOEs) will be replaced by Quality Statements (or 'we statements').
- Six new evidence categories—people's experiences, input from staff and leaders, observations of care, feedback from partners, processes, and care outcomes—will be introduced to go along with a more people-focused approach.
Internal changes at CQC?
To ease strain and limit the number of adjustments for services, the CQC has opted to begin with internal changes first.
The CQC has made it a priority to ensure that the necessary technology is in place starting in the spring of 2023 so they can effectively do their duties. With the aim of reducing problems before the launch, this will be tested with providers.
A new online provider portal that enables providers to submit and access statutory notices and rapidly and easily alter information will debut in the summer of 2023.
With the help of this new online initiative, regulators and providers will be able to communicate better, administrative tasks will take less time, and ongoing and previous assessments will be better supervised.
Once more, this will be introduced gradually.
