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GO Online: Inspection toolkit

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Equity in access

Being responsive means that your service is able to ensure the people you support can access the care, support, and treatment they need when they need it.

The following film provides a summary of this area of inspection. It can help you and your teams learn about what will be inspected and what is important to demonstrate to deliver good or outstanding care.

Introducing Equity in access

Duration 01 min 36 sec

Being responsive means that your service ensures people can access the care, support, and treatment they need when they need it.

Such care will need to be provided consistently, so you will need to have the systems and support in place to enable this to be the case. This will be reliant on effective relationships with health and social care partners, as well as the wider support in the community.

The CQC will want to know how you support people to access other services at the right time and when needed. Be prepared to explain in interviews and back up with documented evidence how this has happened.

Inspectors may also want to know how your service supports different people around reasonable adjustments, ensuring premises are accessible and responding to emergency unplanned care needs.

They’ll be looking for a responsive and flexible approach to providing care, rather than a one size fits all approach.

The CQC will interview the people you support about their experiences, as well as others from within your service but also the wider community. In residential services there may be observations too.

Expect inspectors to look at documented evidence in care plans and reviews, as well as advocacy and support records and your engagement with other services.

To learn more about how you can meet this area of CQC inspection, take a look at GO Online.

Watch the film here: https://vimeo.com/788208787

CQC focus

Inspection

What is the CQC Quality Statement?

We make sure that everyone can access the care, support and treatment they need when they need it.

What sub-topics might the CQC look at when inspecting this?

  • Accessibility to services
  • Emergency unplanned care access/out of hours arrangements
  • Reasonable adjustments
  • Accessible premises
  • Waiting times/delays/cancellations
  • Digital exclusion (communication barriers)
  • Access to post treatment support

How does this part of the inspection relate to CQC Regulations and guidance?

How will the CQC gather evidence?

The CQC will primarily gather evidence by:

  • People's Experience
  • Feedback from staff and leaders
  • Feedback from partners (Care homes only)
  • Processes

Read more about this Quality Statement

  • The CQC have published further insight into what this Quality Statement means, including the I Statements and which legislation it relates to on their website here.