What is the Care Quality Commission (CQC)?

What does the CQC do for homecare providers?

The CQC register homecare services that meet the ‘fundamental standards’ of quality and safety. Before a home care provider can carry out any of the activities the CQC regulates, they must register with the CQC and meet a number of legal requirements, including fundamental standards.

Your clients have a right to expect the following standards whilst receiving care and treatment in their homes. They must:

• have enough to eat and drink
• have care or treatment tailored to their needs
• be treated with dignity and respect at all times
• be provided with clean and suitable equipment
• provide their consent before any care or treatment is given
• not be given unsafe care or treatment, or be put at risk of harm that could be avoided
• not suffer any form of abuse or improper treatment

A home care provider must:

• have a system to handle and respond to complaints
• have enough suitably qualified, competent and experienced staff to meet these standards
• tell their clients if something goes wrong, provide support and apologise
• have plans in place to meet these standards
• display their CQC rating in a place where their clients can see it
• only employ people who can provide care and treatment appropriate to their role

After an inspection, the CQC will publish a report (including ratings) to help people choose their care and understand how good each local service is. Each service is given an overall rating which it must display to the public, ranging from Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate. Each home care business is also rated against the five key questions described below. The CQC publish their latest reports and ratings every month on their website.

What are the 5 fundamental CQC Standards?

From 1st April 2023, the CQC were equipped with new powers, based on five CQC standards, to provide a meaningful and independent assessment of care at local authority and integrated care system level. The new CQC Inspection Framework for 2023, now asks five key questions of all care services.

Is it…

• Safe? Safe? Is your client protected from abuse and avoidable harm?
• Effective? Does the care, treatment and support achieve good results and help maintain quality of life, and is it based on the best available evidence?
• Caring? Do staff involve clients and treat them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect?
• Responsive? Are services organised to meet client needs?
• Well-led? Does the leadership provide high-quality care based on client needs? Does it encourage learning, innovation and promote an open and fair culture?

What to expect at a CQC inspection

The CQC will continuously monitor homecare services and gather information, including views from the public, to help decide when, where and what to inspect.

Inspections give the CQC an opportunity to talk to staff and people who use services.

A CQC inspector will observe care and check the systems and processes being used by the home care provider. They will also look at people’s records to see how their needs are managed, following strict rules about protecting their information.

After each inspection, the CQC publishes a report setting out their findings on the five key questions for people who use the service. The report describes good practice found, as well as any concerns they have.

CQC Powers

The CQC have the power to act if care services fail to meet fundamental standards. The powers are in place to protect people from harm, make sure they receive care standards they have a right to expect, and make sure failing services improve.

The actions taken depend on how serious the problems are and how they affect the people who use the service.

The CQC may take the following actions:

• Give care providers notices setting out what improvements to make and by when
• Hold the home care provider to account by issuing simple cautions or fines and in some cases, prosecuting where people are harmed or placed in danger of harm
• Limit what the care provider may do for a set time
• Place a care provider in ‘special measures’ to give them a clear timetable to improve the quality of care they provide or further action will be taken, for example, cancelling their registration

CQC Quality and Improvement

The CQC publish regional and national views of the quality of health and social care and encourage improvement by highlighting good practice.

As a regulator and inspector, they can provide a unique view on the quality of health and social care in England, helping to share learning and encourage improvement across the sectors.

They carry out and publish reviews and specific inspection programmes focusing on particular aspects of health and social care, including:

• The experiences of certain groups of people
• How different services work together to care for people; and
• The quality of services in a specific area

Homecare software to meet CQC standards

Since 2000, Tagtronics have been trusted to help hundreds of home care companies on the frontline to care better and meet the fundamental standards required by the CQC.

Our user friendly, all-in-one domiciliary homecare software mimics the way your care teams like to work, helping to improve efficiency, save time and minimise errors.

Do you have questions about our all-in-one homecare software solution? Give one of our friendly team a call on 01254 819 205.