Why should you have a pre-inspection consultation?
From years of experience, we have noticed that Providers who embed a culture of compliance and make provision of high quality care usually achieve positive outcomes, both for themselves and their service users. At Care Agency media, our philosophy is all about taking a pro-active approach towards regulatory compliance. We want providers to be prepared for CQC inspectors whenever they walk through the door. Our professional consultants take time in understanding your service and developing robust, actionable solutions to guide you through compliance inspections.
When do I need a pre-inspection consultation?
- Preparation for an upcoming inspection (including the Transitional Monitoring Approach).
- Rectifying CQC inspection offences or enforcement notices.
- Ensuring your practice fit-outs are compliant.
- Starting a new service offering.
Common compliance factors affecting providers during Inspections.
- Good at providing care, but poor at evidencing it.
- Lack of investment in quality protocols which demonstrate compliance.
- Policy in paper and not in practice.
- Quality protocols are in place, but data is not used to improve services.
- Training, learning and mentoring is in place but not adequately evidenced. For example, only face to face training is evidenced and sometimes without specific learning outcomes/ details relevant to the role.
- No clear audit trail linking strategic goals to deliverable actions.
- Poor systems in place for the recruitment and retention of staff.
- Disproportionate focus on profitability over client outcomes.
- Staff team, completely unaware of what KLOE’s are and how their day-to-day work is relevant to these.
Our team of compliance experts carry out focused consultations on the following:
Policies and procedures.- Health and safety.
- Detailed care plan auditing.
- HR paper works.
- Medication management.
- COVID-19 infection control precautions.
- As needed.
Some benefits of undertaking our pre-inspection consultation.
- Offer detailed feedback provided from a different perspective.
- Provide space to take a step back, reflect and review.
- Provide specific action plans for improvement.
- Support your team’s growth, knowledge and confidence.
- May highlight actions for specific team members that inspectors may talk to.
- May prepare service users as inspectors may also target them.
- Are measured against the same standards used by CQC, including the ‘The Key Lines of Enquiry’ (KLOES) and Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well led.
Our process
We have a simple and easy to follow a step-by-step process and our professional consultant explain and guide you through the process making it easy for you to follow.
1. Information gathering
You complete a detailed questionnaire to help us have a clear understanding of the state of your business.
2. Consultation preparation checklist
We review the specific needs of the practice and issue a bespoke consultation Preparation Checklist
3. One on One Consultation.
A one-hour one on one session with our consultant This includes an appraisal of your practice policies, audits, risk assessments, decontamination room compliance, patient safety checks, interview readiness of your team, information governance and clinical governance protocols as well as recruitment and induction checks and recommendations. More recently, we now include within our audit the review of your COVID-19 safe working practices.
4. Consultation report
After the one on one, we will issue you with an outcome report which provides a detailed best practice gap analysis of where your practice is demonstrating compliance and best practice recommendations where improvements are required.