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<p>In July 2012, the Government set out its vision of the development of high quality
care services in the White Paper, <a href="http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm83/8378/8378.pdf"
target="_blank"><em>Caring for our future: Reforming care and support</em></a>. 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.</p><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p>
</p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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