The Care Quality Commission (CQC) are looking at their strategy of health and social care and how it’s changing.
In their report, safety was a key concern, which appears to be consistently the poorest area of performance in their assessment.
As more and more case management companies are looking to register with the CQC and go through the inspection process, I thought it would be important to look at organisational cultures around safety and how this crucial area was managed.
With so much pressure on support workers to keep themselves and clients living in their own homes safe from COVID-19, how does your company culture stand up to scrutiny?
The CQC report helped generate these questions.
- Do you have a strong safety culture where risks aren’t overlooked, hidden or ignored is crucial?
- Do you enable staff to report concerns openly and honestly, encourage confidence to speak up, knowing they won’t be blamed when an accident happens?
- Everyone accepts that incidents whether positive, negative and wholly unavoidable, provide opportunities for everyone in the company to learn. How do you implement lessons learned and show the improvements made?
- What are you doing in your case management company to highlight your strong organisational culture in relation to safety in the workplace with your team?
- Are you raising questions and discussions around this topic at staff meetings, MDT meetings, supervision sessions?
- How do you as a company involve clients and their families in their own safety throughout their health and care journey, highlighting the impact this has on their outcomes?
- How are you evidencing this important area, making it easy for your inspector to see at an inspection?
Have a read of the CQC’s report, they want your feedback and would appreciate any thoughts to be sent by email to strategydevelopment@cqc.org.uk by 5.00pm on Thursday 4 March 2021.