Call For “Urgent Reform” Of Social Care Inspection Rating System
CAMPAIGNERS are calling on the Government to urgently reform social care’s rating system which they say is as unfair as Ofsted’s was for education.
The call comes after the Government announced it was scrapping the one and two-word Ofsted school inspection grades.
The provider representative organisation, The Independent Care Group (ICG), says the same should happen in social care. At the moment care providers are rated Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The ICG argues that this does not give the full picture of the provider and can have a detrimental impact on the operator and their business.
ICG Chair, Mike Padgham said:
“The impact of a damning rating on an operator can be devastating.
“We know of business owners who have closed down and suffered very real anguish after their operation was rated as ‘inadequate’, for example.
“A ‘requires improvement’ or an ‘inadequate’ rating can unnecessarily push operators to the brink and in some cases, out of the industry altogether.
“The terms are too short and brief and do not allow any room for explanation. Either of those two ratings can seriously damage a business’s reputation and cause them to close with the accompanying pressure and distress to the owners.
“We are not looking to weaken inspection in any way and are committed to poor examples of care being identified. But what we need is a partnership approach to the inspection process and far more empathy when organisations are being reviewed.
“In so many cases, these are people’s livelihoods the CQC is inspecting, and they have to appreciate that a swift, one or two-word rating can finish them overnight. We need a much more comprehensive and balanced rating system where efforts are made to support providers to improve shortcomings, rather than the ‘them and us’ confrontational relationship that can exist at the moment.”
The ICG says the reform of the rating system is just one aspect of overall reform of the CQC that is necessary.
A report earlier this summer from Dr Penny Dash, who is carrying out a review into the CQC, revealed low levels of inspections, a lack of clinical expertise amongst those conducting inspections and a lack of consistency. One in five health and social care providers had not received a rating from the CQC whilst others had not been inspected for several years. Care England has criticised the CQC for its ‘over-reliance on outdated data, lack of transparency in their regulatory approach, and vast inconsistencies between assessments’.
Mr Padgham added: “We want to work with the CQC to develop a good regulatory framework that respects both service users and service providers, which ends the duplication of inspection with local authority and NHS inspections and ends the “them and us” feeling that many providers have when dealing with the body.
“It has to be a partnership, a partnership that, at the end of the day, serves everyone. We share the common aim of providing the best care to people and should be working together to achieve that.”
