The state of the Care Sector – 2014/2015

Charts

The CQC has issued a report that looks at how the care industry has performed throughout 2014/2015. We’ve summarised the findings, with thoughts on how it will impact care homes throughout the UK.

Public cuts aren’t helping!

The main issue the CQC highlighted is that care providers are having to do more with less support. This is consistent across the sector with both the NHS and local authorities reducing funding, making life more difficult for everyone.

The result being that providers are unable to afford to the required staff to do the job correctly.

The raising of the national minimum wage could heap additional pressure on providers.

Quality is variable by sector – and safety is still the biggest concern

The quality of care is very varied dependant on the type of care being provided.

Primary care received the best ratings with 82% of all providers rated as ‘Good’. However, adult social care and hospitals were considerably lower than that, with the number dropping to 59% in adult social care and 37% at hospitals.

33% of all adult social care homes required improvement while 7% were rated as inadequate.

Safety is still an area that needs to be addressed within the sector as 10% of services were deemed ‘unsafe’ at inspection.

Effective leadership provides the best care

The CQC has highlighted that the key success driver for care providers is effective leadership.

Having inspected thousands of homes here are their 5 key leadership qualities:

1. The skills, experience and visibility of management.
2. Effective engagement and communication with staff and people using services.
3. A strong and positive organisational culture.
4. Learning when things go wrong.
5. Governance processes to support and underpin success

Staff planning is one of the most important aspects of leadership within care providers.

The CQC have noted that it isn’t just about having the right number of staff, it’s about having the correct people with the correct skillset on duty.

Training and development of staff is also very important. When you train staff internally loyalty will increase and this in turn will reduce recruitment costs while increasing the quality of your staff.

Our care expert has their say

Tracy Winter our care expert who has years of experience supporting our care client’s, states:

“The funding cuts in addition to some recent changes to Employment Law, are having a huge effect on the care sector and we have clients ringing up daily asking for help and assistance with issues related to the knock-on effect of these cuts.

The important thing we stress is that organisation is key. Making sure that the best staff are recruited, maintained and correct employment procedures are always followed is essential.

I have been told that our clients find our new tool CQC Pro reall+y useful. It is tailored specifically to deal with a CQC inspection and allows managers and owners to organise work rotas and update paperwork, such as risk assessments, quickly and easily. In addition to CQC Pro, Citation provide online training which is available at the click of a button.

 

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