Top 5 reasons care providers create an ASC-WDS account

Eliza McConnell, our Relationship and Engagement Manager, highlights the top reasons why providers sign up for an ACS-WDS account.

The Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) is a free online service which produces vital insights for the sector, in exchange for tools and benefits that care providers can use in their organisations.

When care providers register, we ask them why they decided to create an account. The top 5 reasons this year have been:

1. To get access to funding for training our staff
   
   Care providers have saved thousands of pounds by using ASC-WDS to access sources of funding. The Workforce Development Fund and the new Learning and Development Support Scheme reimburse the cost of approved qualifications and training courses.
   
   
2. To record and manage staff training and qualifications
   
   Users have told us that by recording their staff learning in ASC-WDS, they’ve been able to do away with manual spreadsheets. It’s a free learning management system complete with expiry alerts, downloadable reports and the ability to define which training is mandatory for each job role.
   
   
3. To help us with the Care Quality Commission
   
   If your service is regulated by CQC, you can choose to share some of your data with them to help them get a better picture of your service as they monitor, assess and inspect. CQC focus follow-up inspections on where insight suggests risk is greatest or quality is improving. The data from ASC-WDS is used to help form indicators for when further investigation may be appropriate. You can also use ASC-WDS features to help you gather evidence for inspection.
   
   
4. To help the Department of Health and Social Care and others to better understand the adult social care sector
   
   The insights we produce are crucial in building and evidence base for social care. The data is used nationally and locally to drive change. It’s used in response to formal inquiries and government reviews, ministerial briefings, parliamentary debate, academic research and much more!
   
   
5. To help us understand our workforce better
   
   ASC-WDS is a free place to collect information about your staff members. You can also benchmark your workforce metrics like payrates, vacancy rate and turnover against similar providers in your local area. Care providers tell us this information helps them to stay competitive and make data-based decisions.

Find out more about ASC-WDS. 

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