Martin Lowthian, Quality and Governance Expert, Posted 18 February 2020

“In social care, as a regulated sector, we have an obligation to ensure that we are providing a service that is, at the very least, compliant with the standards and regulations defined in the country or countries we provide care and support.

In order to know that you as a provider are compliant, you need to undertake a wide range of audits to gain an individual understanding of your performance in each area. In addition to audits this you must undertake mock inspections, or commission an external consultant to undertake one on your behalf.

As a provider we strive to plan, deliver and record very good and excellent standards of care, so those who we support live as well as possible and our staff team get the satisfaction of doing a hard job very well.

That is our mission and aim. However, we have the additional objective to be commercially viable and successful, something that can be greatly impacted by the rating awarded to us by our regulators. We know it is commercially advantageous to have your regulator publish a report that has 6’s and 5’s in Scotland, or Outstanding and Good in England; while poor results are usually very commercially damaging.

Therefore, it is much better to plan and invest our time in ensuring we achieve a good report, rather than spend time, money and suffering often irreparable reputational damage challenging a negative inspection report.

Whilst the regulators in the UK have their own 4 flavours of regulation, the fundamentals are the same…” Read the blog in full…

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