Care Inspectorate Scotland look to improve Learning Disability Services

On the 22nd December 2014, the Care Inspectorate for Scotland published information on their website, outlining the fact that, in order to support excellent practice in services for individuals with a learning disability, they will further develop their approach to delivering scrutiny and improvement to services providing support to adults with a learning disability during 2015/16. This will build on the awareness work that the Care Inspectorate undertook during 2014/15 with care homes for adults with a learning disability around the Keys to Life strategy and the Winterbourne View recommendations.

During 2014 the Care Inspectorate inspectors raised awareness of these important documents by asking a number of key questions about the strategy and the report of care home managers. The purpose of this work was to support services to implement the recommendations. From April 2015, the Care Inspectorate will be conducting an Inspection Focus Area around the Keys to Life as part of planned scrutiny and improvement. This will focus on people's experience and outcomes and how their rights are promoted and protected. This will take place across services for adults with a learning disability. Separately, a small cohort of 36 care homes for adults with a learning disability will be inspected in a new way as part of their review of scrutiny and improvement.

The Inspection Focus Area

The Care Inspectorate's future work around the Inspection Focus Area will take the form of inspectors asking a series of improvement focussed questions to generate and identify good practice and to report on where key principles relating to Keys to Life have been met, including enabling a safe and open culture and equal access to healthcare. This will start during the self assessment. At the subsequent inspection, inspectors will follow-up any outstanding requirements and then the focus will be on Keys to Life against all four quality themes, using these quality statements:

Care and support
1.1 and 1.5 We respond to service user care and support needs using person centred values

Environment (care homes only)
2.1 and 2.3 The environment allows service users to have as positive a quality of life as possible

Staffing
3.1 and 3.4 We ensure that everyone working in the service has an ethos of respect towards service users and each other

Management and leadership
 4.1 and 4.3 To encourage good quality care, we promote leadership values throughout our workforce

The inspection will draw evaluations (grades) in the usual way, using the scale from unsatisfactory - excellent. Inspectors will ask care homes to complete the self assessment which will be available from mid February 2015 and will notify managers through the eform system when it is available. This must be completed by the end of March 2015 as the information will be used to inform inspections of services.

New type of inspections - a test of change

The Care Inspectorate is currently testing new types of inspection to support the proportionate, risk-based approach and see if different inspection types can better support improved outcomes for people using care services. In approximately 36 care homes for adults with a learning disability which are evaluated as being good, very good or excellent, the Care Inspectorate propose to conduct shorter, thematic inspections. These will not hinge on particular quality statements, but will examine more broadly the way that the care home is implementing the Keys to Life policy under each of the four quality themes (care and support, staffing, environment, management and leadership). The inspection will follow up on any outstanding requirements, and the reports will be much shorter and more accessible. The Care Inspectorate will not draw evaluations (grades) for these inspections. If, however, the inspector is concerned by any aspect of the care they see during the inspection, they may revert to a more traditional inspection.

Source: www.careinspectorate.com, accessed 5th Jan 15