Infection Prevention and Control
Our latest COVID-19 Insight report explores good practice in infection prevention and control (IPC) across all sectors including adult social care. We have been encouraged by our IPC findings so far. Our full findings will be shared in November, but across our special programme of inspections of IPC in 300 care homes we found more than 90% assurance across the areas asked. We would like to thank services demonstrating this good practice.
However, we have identified a small number of adult social care providers where we have concerns around IPC policy and effective use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This includes;
- PPE not being used in line with current government guidance
- No COVID-19 risk assessments in place or being out of date
- Staff not wearing PPE
Following the letter issued by DHSC last week and with infection rates rising, now is the time to again reflect on IPC in your service and ensure you have the right processes and systems in place appropriate to your service. It is vital to get this right to ensure that people receive safe, effective and good quality care.
How confident are you that all of your staff follow processes, even when you are not there? How does your auditing process check on staff working evenings, nights and weekends?
Where we have concerns, we can and will take swift regulatory action. This could include publicly giving a provider actions that they must take, through to restricting a service’s operation, including by issuing requirement notices, warning notices, and in cases of significant concern, placing conditions on a provider’s registration. All of these actions are designed to ensure provider’s take action quickly.
You can read guidance for social care providers on how to prevent, control and protect care workers and those they care for from COVID-19 infection here. Our IPC inspection tool is also available for you to understand what we look for on inspection in care homes. We will be continuing to carry out IPC inspections over the coming months, both to highlight good practice and to take action where improvements are needed.
Blog from Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care
In a new blog, Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care updates on our closed cultures work and reports on the first Expert Advisory Group meeting, part of the closed cultures project at CQC.
You can read the blog here.
|
|
 |
New podcast episode
In our latest podcast we talk about one the themes we are developing for our new strategy 'Promoting Safe Care for People' and what this could mean for the work we do.
You can find this and other episodes on Soundcloud and most other podcast providers.
Skills for Care’s support for registered managers
As a registered manager if you feel like you need some support, Skills for Care have lots of options for you to stay connected.
They support 150 local networks across England which thousands of managers attend to share knowledge and access peer support. These networks are now available virtually through WhatsApp and Facebook groups. You can also watch their new webinars on key topics like keeping your team motivated, effective delegation and empowering staff, essential training and HR.
Need to speak to someone? Skills for Care have an advice line for managers too.
For more information visit the Skills for Care Website.
Supporting Personal Relationships Guide
We published our report Promoting sexual safety through empowerment in February this year. This report had a number of recommendations which included Skills for Care updating their guidance on ‘Supporting personal relationships’.
Skills for Care have worked with Supported Loving to update this guidance. We’d like to get your feedback before its launched and to understand if there are any other resources that could help you to use it.
The guide is relevant to everyone who provides social care to any group of people. It will help organisations to equip their staff to support people to develop and maintain personal relationships, in a way that respects peoples’ choices, values and keeps them safe.
You can access the draft guide and share your views through our digital participation platform by signing up or logging in.
Problems renewing public liability insurance
We’re aware that some providers have had difficulty obtaining or renewing employer and/or public liability insurance. This has particularly affected social care providers and appears to be a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19). We’ve heard that some insurance providers are significantly increasing renewal premiums and/or imposing high excess charges or exclusions for Covid-19 claims. A few providers have struggled to renew their insurance where existing insurance providers are withdrawing from the social and health care market.
Therefore, we may ask some extra questions about your insurance cover when we’re in contact with you as part of any regulatory activity. This is to help us understand who it is affecting and any impacts. This matter is being looked at across government and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) are working with providers and insurers to understand the breadth and severity of the issue to see if there is any action that Government should take. CQC has an important role to escalate intelligence we are receiving about these concerns to inform this.
If you’re having trouble getting suitable insurance cover, we may want to discuss these issues with you. This is because we need to be assured there is no adverse impact on the safety of people using your services and that you will continue to comply with the requirements of regulations.
Share your feedback on changes to our Market Oversight Guidance
There is still time to contribute your views to proposed changes to our Market Oversight Guidance.
Since April 2015, we’ve had a statutory responsibility to monitor and assess the financial sustainability of those care organisations in England that local authorities would find difficult to replace should they fail and become unable to carry on delivering a service. You can read more about Market Oversight and how it works on our website.
We’ve learnt a lot over the past 5 years and we’re now engaging on the proposed changes we wish to make to the Market Oversight guidance, to help streamline it, build on our experience and bring it up to date.
COVID-19 insight report: Issue 4
We have published the fourth edition of our COVID-19 insight report, this is a monthly report that shares our key findings over recent months. In this edition we focus on infection, prevention and control and early findings from our provider collaboration reviews.
Listen to our latest podcast
In our latest podcast we talk about ' Promoting Safe Care for People' and what this could mean for our strategy and the work we do.
Podcasts covering all of the potential themes are now available, including Meeting people's needs, Smarter regulation, Systems and Driving Improvement.
Listen via Soundcloud or your favourite podcast provider, and subscribe to hear the latest episodes first.
|
|
 |
Watch our webinar recordings
We ran a series of webinars introducing the emerging strategic themes. These one-hour webinars were aimed at health and social care providers and professionals, strategic partners and trade associations.
All of the webinars are now available to watch on our YouTube channel.
|
|
 |
All CQC offices are closed
Please do not send post - visit our website for details on how to contact us.
Accessibility resources to help you communicate about COVID-19
Follow us on Twitter!
Keep up with our work with professionals and provider organisations in England by following us on Twitter @CQCProf.
|
|
