CQC Importance.
Regulations, and compliance in general, are often viewed as complicated and confusing. A lot of this can be put down to the difficult job regulators have, trying to ensure nationwide standards across a constantly shifting and changing environment. Regulations are an attempt to simplify these standards, so the regulator has a benchmark to assess care against and the service provider has a set of standards to work towards.
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Service users and patients are, by definition, in a vulnerable position. This is why they need the highest standard of care available at all times. The only way to ensure this is to implement strict regulations surrounding the delivery of care. In the simplest possible terms, you can’t operate without these regulations; so play the game and keep your quality of service at its best.
Your Staff
It’s imperative that all members of staff are kept fully up-to-date with the regulation requirements and their roles within it. Test your staff – stop them in the corridor and ask them the mission and values of your organisation. Ask them what they are doing and why they are doing it. This isn’t micro-management; it’s ensuring all members of your organisation get used to justifying their actions.
Care Quality Commission (CQC) Ratings.
There are four ratings that are given to health and social care services. These are outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate.
Outstanding
The service is performing exceptionally well and exceeds our expectations.
Good
The service is performing well and is meeting our expectations. There is still room for improvements.
Requires Improvement
The service isn’t performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.
Inadequate
The service is performing badly and we’ve taken action against the person or organisation that runs it.
The Impact of CQC Ratings.
Negative inspections from CQC can have significant implications for an organisation’s reputation and survival; providers could potentially lose funding, commissioning, public confidence, patients and customers, or at worst, be closed down.
With this in mind it is imperative that providers aim for a Good or Outstanding rating to remain financially viable in a highly competitive market. Regulation offers a commercial benefit in a financially challenging world: in a competitive marketplace, compliance with regulation can be a point of differentiation and can award competitive advantage. Some providers say that they used good compliance as a marketing tool to attract and reassure commissioners and customers; it indicates the quality of their service. This is especially true in the private sector.
What Is Rated?
Ratings are normally given to each of the five key questions and the service an overall rating. In inspections of acute hospitals, specialist mental health services and community health services, they are given a rating for each of the five key questions for each of the core services / Departments inspected. In inspections of GP practices, they are given a rating for each of the five key questions against each of the six population groups inspected.
Displaying Ratings
By law, care providers have to display the ratings we give them. They must display them in the places where they provide care, somewhere that people who use their services can easily see them. This might be the main entrance to a hospital or the waiting area of a GP surgery. They must also show their ratings on their website, if they have one. For more information you can read the government’s
Clearly Defined Standards.
In a survey, almost all providers stated that they expend significant time and energy interpreting how to evidence CQC standards and that it can be difficult to clearly understand specifically what CQC requires of them, both at registration and on an ongoing basis. Providers wanted to see standards written clearly and unambiguously so they could clearly identify what CQC requires and fulfil these requirements. HLTH Manage can help your business simplify CQC Compliance.
