Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to work with local councils to improve their recording and reporting of complaints against providers of social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to increase standards of social care; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
In July 2012, the Government set out its vision of the development of high quality care services in the White Paper, Caring for our future: Reforming care and support. This was reinforced in the Care Act. It set out clearly the care and support system we want to achieve – with the support of care and support organisations, charities, carers, volunteers and the public. The Adult Social Care Workforce programme supports delivery of this vision, through increasing capacity, improving capability and developing leadership.
On the recommendation of the Cavendish report into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, we are introducing the new Care Certificate, to help ensure that healthcare assistants, social care support workers and their employers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.
Health Education England, Skills for Care and Skills for Health launched the pilot for the Care Certificate on 28 April 2014. The pilot is taking place across a range of health and social care settings, and, subject to evaluation, the national introduction of the Care Certificate is planned for March 2015.
In order to make sure that people are held to account for the quality of care they provide, we are introducing measures to ensure that company directors who consent or turn a blind eye to poor care will be liable for prosecution. In the future, they and provider organisations could face unlimited fines if found guilty.
To ensure that social care providers and services employ and are run by people with the right values and skills, we are introducing a ‘fit and proper person’ test for Directors. Where the Care Quality Commission (CQC) considers a Director not to be fit to run a provider organisation, it will be able to insist on his or her removal.
The Government realised that the regulation and inspection of social care provision needed to improve. As a result, the CQC has introduced a new system of inspection of social care providers, backed by new fundamental standards of care. This new system of inspection is based on five important questions that matter most to people: whether services are safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to their needs. CQC inspections now result in a provider being rated on a four-point scale - ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’, for each of the five domains that it inspects. This results in clear, straightforward information that commissioners of services and the public can understand.
The new inspections are carried out by expert inspection teams, which include people who have personal experience of care. The CQC piloted the new approach from April 2014 and began to inspect and rate all providers against the new standards in October.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Employers are responsible for ensuring that any potential employee has the required level of communication skills for their role. It is essential that a workers’ command of English should be considered as part of the recruitment process. Under CQC’s current approach to inspection and regulation, it is stipulated that workers in adult social care should be able to communicate effectively with people who use services and other staff and to ensure that care, treatment and support of service users is not compromised. This applies to all workers, whatever their background or nationality.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what central records are kept of complaints against social care providers; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has put in place to improve the level of English language proficiency required for providers of social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
In July 2012, the Government set out its vision of the development of high quality care services in the White Paper, Caring for our future: Reforming care and support. This was reinforced in the Care Act. It set out clearly the care and support system we want to achieve – with the support of care and support organisations, charities, carers, volunteers and the public. The Adult Social Care Workforce programme supports delivery of this vision, through increasing capacity, improving capability and developing leadership.
On the recommendation of the Cavendish report into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, we are introducing the new Care Certificate, to help ensure that healthcare assistants, social care support workers and their employers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.
Health Education England, Skills for Care and Skills for Health launched the pilot for the Care Certificate on 28 April 2014. The pilot is taking place across a range of health and social care settings, and, subject to evaluation, the national introduction of the Care Certificate is planned for March 2015.
In order to make sure that people are held to account for the quality of care they provide, we are introducing measures to ensure that company directors who consent or turn a blind eye to poor care will be liable for prosecution. In the future, they and provider organisations could face unlimited fines if found guilty.
To ensure that social care providers and services employ and are run by people with the right values and skills, we are introducing a ‘fit and proper person’ test for Directors. Where the Care Quality Commission (CQC) considers a Director not to be fit to run a provider organisation, it will be able to insist on his or her removal.
The Government realised that the regulation and inspection of social care provision needed to improve. As a result, the CQC has introduced a new system of inspection of social care providers, backed by new fundamental standards of care. This new system of inspection is based on five important questions that matter most to people: whether services are safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to their needs. CQC inspections now result in a provider being rated on a four-point scale - ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’, for each of the five domains that it inspects. This results in clear, straightforward information that commissioners of services and the public can understand.
The new inspections are carried out by expert inspection teams, which include people who have personal experience of care. The CQC piloted the new approach from April 2014 and began to inspect and rate all providers against the new standards in October.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Employers are responsible for ensuring that any potential employee has the required level of communication skills for their role. It is essential that a workers’ command of English should be considered as part of the recruitment process. Under CQC’s current approach to inspection and regulation, it is stipulated that workers in adult social care should be able to communicate effectively with people who use services and other staff and to ensure that care, treatment and support of service users is not compromised. This applies to all workers, whatever their background or nationality.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will work with local authorities to improve oversight of agency companies providing social care to elderly and vulnerable people.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will take steps to ensure that (a) care agencies, (b) managers and (c) individuals who have been found to be involved in the provision of sub-standard care provision are prevented from working in that industry in any local authority area.
Answered by Norman Lamb
All care agencies must register with and be inspected and regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), as regulator of health and adult social care services. The CQC regulates care providers against a set of registration requirements in relation to safety and quality of services. Should the CQC find a care provider is not complying with regulatory requirements, it has a range of enforcement powers which it can employ, up to and including cancelling its registration to operate.
The Department worked closely with the Home Office to set up the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The role of the DBS is to help employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups of people. The DBS provides a system of criminal records checking and barring functions, to prevent unsuitable people from being able to work with vulnerable groups in regulated work in care and health settings.
This year, the DBS has been running a programme of free events targeted at those who have a responsibility for removing individuals from posts in regulated activity where harm has occurred. The events emphasise the responsibilities of employers to make referrals for barring and explain the DBS barring and decision making processes.
The Department has reinforced this message in the safeguarding guidance issued recently under the Care Act. The guidance is very clear that safe employment practices, including the duties to refer people who have caused harm, to the DBS, are a key part of effective safeguarding policies and practice in the care sector.
In order to make sure that people are held to account for the quality of care they provide, we are introducing measures to ensure that company directors who consent or turn a blind eye to poor care will be liable for prosecution. In the future, they and provider organisations could face unlimited fines if found guilty.
To ensure that social care providers and services employ and are run by people with the right values and skills, we are introducing a ‘fit and proper person’ test for Directors. Where the CQC considers a Director not to be fit to run a provider organisation, it will be able to insist on his or her removal.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assistance the Government provides to local authorities seeking to investigate failures in the provision of social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will publish a central register of complaints about the providers of poor-quality social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department takes to ensure that local authorities are aware of their obligations to investigate complaints about poor-quality social care; and what assistance the Government provides to help them meet those obligations.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure the same standard of care across the country for those diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Answered by Jane Ellison
To help reduce regional variations, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is increasingly incorporating information from accreditation and peer review programmes into its assessments of National Health Service trusts' services, including the National Cancer Peer Review Programme. The CQC also intends to use data from the national clinical audit which is being developed for prostate cancer. In addition, national statistics on waiting times experienced by patients with suspected and diagnosed cancers continue to be collected, monitored and published in order to improve equity of access to cancer services and to contribute to an improvement in survival rates.
The results of the latest national Cancer Patient Experience Survey (CPES) from 2013 show that, whilst variations between trusts still exist, the overall range of variation for many indicators has narrowed. For example, in 2010 the proportion of patients saying that they had been given the name of a Clinical Nurse Specialist ranged from 92% in the highest performing trust to 59% in the poorest performing trust (33 points); by 2013 this had reduced to 97% to 76% (21 points).
NHS Improving Quality (NHS IQ) will be doing a suite of work across all surveys to understand what the barriers are to implementing change and to showcase best practice where real improvements can be demonstrated.
NHS England is working with NHS IQ to develop better ways of using the CPES data within the NHS in order to maximise the impact of the survey, to be able to work with successful and struggling organisations to spread best practice for example.