10th March 2016

National Care Association Press Release 10/03/16

In summary the Review found that:

·        Impact on Care: Providers told us they are spending a disproportionate time on form filling and administrative requirements taking them away from caring for their residents.

·        Impact on Market: Providers told us that the increasing administrative burden associated with regulatory checks was causing some to consider leaving the market.

 

·        Duplication of local authority contract monitoring requirements with CQC inspection requirements: Providers reported unnecessary duplication of local authority contract monitoring requirements with CQC inspection requirements.

 

·        Lack of consistency around application of the role and responsibilities of CCGs and how they interact with local authorities and the CQC: Varying approaches of CCGs to commissioning, monitoring and guidance generated unnecessary extra paperwork in some areas.

 

·      The need to join up fragmented initiatives:   The fieldwork identified a number of localised examples of good practice. However, these are fragmented without much evidence of how agencies had joined up to deliver them.

The Government has carefully considered all the evidence submitted to this review and accepts the findings. The Department of Health has committed to work with all the key agencies involved in the regulation and commissioning of care, and with care providers, to tackle the issues the review has highlighted. The response and associated action plan will include: 

·        Issuing a short, clear statement of which public bodies do what in their interactions with care homes – addressing concerns that the role of different public agencies is unclear to many providers and appears to them to involve a significant amount of overlap.

 

·        Improving and streamlining information requests placed on providers – addressing concerns that there is duplication and overlap in contract monitoring, inspection and data requirements.

·        Looking at ways to standardise local authorities’ interactions with providers, including through the Primary Authority scheme – addressing concerns about inconsistency of approach, a lack of clarity about requirements and similar data being collected in multiple formats.

 

·        Collating and disseminating examples of good practice through a single programme of work – addressing an observation that a number of different agencies are exploring improved approaches but not always in a coordinated way.

This response will be underpinned by a detailed and ambitious programme of work which will be developed in partnership with the sector and on which the Government will report progress at six monthly intervals.

Once again thank you for discussing the issues with the review team and for submitting evidence to the review - both were enormously helpful to us.

Nadra Ahmed OBE DL 

Chairman

National Care Association