English social care services to be rated as 'Good'

The Care Quality Commission's Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, Andrea Sutcliffe, highlighted the first ever 'Good' adult social care ratings across the country when she made her official speech on Friday 31st October at the National Children and Adult Services (NCAS) Conference in Manchester.

21 services out of 30 reports published so far have been judged by the regulator as providing 'Good' standards of care.

These first few reports follow on from CQC's introduction of a new, more rigorous and expert-led approach of inspecting adult social care that was launched earlier this month.

This includes rating care homes and other adult social care services for the first time as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate to help the public make informed choices about their care.

Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission, Andrea Sutcliffe, said: "Our new approach to inspecting and rating adult social care services is intended to shine a spotlight on care, to celebrate the good and tackle the bad. I am pleased that our first ratings do just that and are highlighting the good services we know exist.

"This is of course a very early picture with the publication of our first 30 reports. There is a long way to go before we inspect and rate every one of the 25,000 adult social care services across England by March 2016.

"But what is very heartening is that of these first reports, 21 have been rated as Good. I pay tribute to the managers and staff whose sheer hard work and determination is obviously making a difference for the people using these services.

"I am determined that we see improvement in under-performing services to ensure every person has the same opportunity to receive care that is safe, caring, effective, responsive and well-led. In that way we can realise our ambition for adult social care to provide services we would be happy for any of our loved ones to use."

Of the first 30 ratings, 21 are rated as Good, 6 as Requires Improvement and 3 as Inadequate.

Examples of Good care that CQC looks for in its inspection work, includes:

• Safe: A good service will protect people from bullying, harassment, avoidable harm and potential abuse.
• Caring: In a good service, people will receive care and support from staff who know and understand their history, likes, preferences, needs hopes and goals.
• Effective: A good service will make sure that the needs of people are met consistently by staff who have the right competencies, knowledge, qualifications, skills, experience, attitudes and behaviours.
• Responsive: In a good service, people will receive consistent, personalised care, treatment and support and they will be involved in identifying their needs, choices, preferences and how they are met.
• Well-led: A good service will have a clear vision and set of values that includes honesty, involvement, compassion, dignity, independence, respect, equality and safety which will be understood and consistently put into practice.