From Crisis To Quality: 8 Top Tips For Transforming Adult Social Care Services From Within
Article supplied by Croner (https://app.croneri.co.uk)
Care providers may receive a rating of “requires improvement” or “inadequate” for several reasons, however it is vital to take this as an opportunity to learn and grow as a provider and organisation. Understanding where things have gone wrong and being willing to make improvements is the first step to positively turn around your service. Maria Blackwell, Care Specialist Technical Writer, explores ways in which a service can effectively make those changes and strive to achieve a higher rating.
Providers in crisis
Running a care provision has the possibility to be one of the most rewarding things you can do. However, it can also prove to be highly challenging due to several factors, both, internally and externally from the service. There are many reasons why a care service declines, including lack of leadership, poor management, lack of safeguarding people, poor environment, etc.
Funding problems
Funding and financial strain also plays a big role in why providers are struggling to keep up with improvements and demands. Councils have restricted budgets and providers have rising costs which they are struggling to cover with the fees the council can pay. This results in an inability to keep up with the demand of those needing care and support. The social care market is facing a time of instability and parliament recognises that “the care provider market is in distress, struggling to cover existing costs via fees and facing underfunding”.
Rising cost-of-living
Cost-of-living problems also play a part in issues for care providers. With rising cost of utilities, running costs for providers have significantly increased. Alongside this, the changes coming into force with the Employment Rights Act 2025, which include fair pay agreement and increased rights for workers, are likely to increase the amount of employment tribunal claims. There are also changes with Statuatory Sick Pay (SSP) rights, which means more workers will be eligible for this and can increase costs to businesses.
The cost-of-living crisis has also had significant impacts on individuals themselves, as their day-to-day spending has increased, which means potentially less money is left for their care, if needed in the future. Therefore, people may become more reliant on care funded by the local authority which in turn puts increasing pressure on local authorities financially. Additionally, it also puts pressure on providers to be able to potentially take individuals into their service for less money per week.
8 Top Tips for transforming adult social care services
With inspectorates running behind with inspections, it can cause some providers to go without an updated inspection for many years. In this time, they could have either improved or declined in their standards and it would not be recorded nor monitored externally. However, it is important to ensure that you always remain inspection-ready, as the inspectorates, especially the CQC, have started to clear the backlog of missed and overdue inspections. Implementation of the top tips below can help a care provider remain inspection ready, which can also lessen the stress that can often come with when inspectors turn up.
1. Strive for person-centred care and inclusion
In all social care settings, the people receiving care should be at the heart of all decisions being made, as every decision made will have an impact on them, directly or indirectly. If something is directly related to the care of an individual, they should always be involved in these decisions, if appropriate. If this is not possible due to cognitive decline, for example, then their families and/or multidisciplinary team should be involved on their behalf.
2. Get to know the people receiving care
This sounds simple, however this is not something that is embedded into every care provision. Train the staff on the importance of getting to know the individuals they care for, their likes and dislikes, their histories, who is important in their lives, down to the small details of how they like their tea or coffee. By placing the people at the centre of the service, it empowers them to have control over their lives and the care they receive. Encourage people to provide feedback about their care service and adopt an active listening approach to this, ensuring all feedback is responded to in a timely manner and an achievable action plan put in place.
3. Meeting cultural and religious needs
It is also vital to adopt a person-centred approach to ensure that people are included and their cultural, religious and other needs are met. This fosters the sense of inclusion and belonging, and promotes a respectful culture within the care service. By understanding someone’s cultural and religious needs, it can also inform activities that can be tailored around this (such as Christmas, Easter, Eid, Diwali, etc).
4. Actionable plans for organisational changes and improvements
As an organisation, making changes and improvements should be a continual process that is monitored. To be able to make any changes, the root cause of any issue need to be identified, investigated and appropriate action taken.
Next, a workable action plan with realistic targets should be developed which can also be used as evidence to inspectorates that you are aware of any issues and what actions are being taken. This plan should be collaborative and aimed to achieve a strong foundation for the service. Along with the action plan, there should also be realistic and actionable contingency plans in place.
5. Strengthening quality assurance processes
Strengthening quality assurance processes are also a very useful way in that a service can keep track of issues and improvements on a more regular basis. It is best practice to follow an audit schedule, by focusing on one area of the business per week, such as infection prevention and control or medication. Utilise the audits that are already within the service and identify areas in which these audits can be improved to best capture what it is intended to.
6. High-quality and person-centred training
Appropriate training for the service is vital to be able to provide high-quality and person-centred care. For example, if the service takes people who need palliative care and approaching end of life, you must ensure that there is training in place for this. People should not be admitted into the care service if they have needs in which the care staff and management do not have training to manage, or if they fall outside the registered activities with the regulator. All training should have robust records and should be monitored to identify when someone’s training is going to expire and should be given refresher training prior to this.
7. Using a Collaborative and community approach
Creating strong collaborative relationships between all people involved in the service, both internally and externally, is vital. To be able to improve a service, hold consultations with the staff and other stakeholders, actively listen to their feedback and have open discussions about how best to act on feedback for immediate and continual improvement. All care services will work closely with local authorities, NHS, local communities and other professional services. Hence, the relationship with these can not only improve the quality of care provided, but local reputation as well.
8. Research your local community
Conduct research about what the needs of your local community is and focus on this, rather than the “postcode lottery” that is often spoken about in adult social care. This also shows the local community and authorities that the care service has a better idea of what is needed and will tailor to that (within reason). In turn, this can also help improve any reputational damage or preconceptions that may have been caused previously.
Final thoughts
Turning around an adult care service in crisis is a task that can be stressful and challenging, but highly rewarding to see improvements being made and the service thriving. It is vital to remember to use any resources sustainably to avoid financial strain being caused unnecessarily. Recognise and reward quality across the staff team and take a proactive approach to the service, rather than reactive. Remember that with any improvements made to turn a service around, the wellbeing and impact on the people receiving care is of upmost priority and should be at the forefront of decision making.
Further reading
• Quality Assurance and Improvement, Navigate-Care
•. Service turnaround and improvement toolkit
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