Top tips on meeting CQC requirements from our recent podcast guests

…if you're relying on the inspector to pick up on why that's a good thing, then you're reliant on the inspectors’ judgment and their view of it, and if they're not very knowledgeable about your type of service, that can be a risk. We don't do that.

So, what we do is we clearly say, this is the evidence we have. It is linked to this quality statement, and this is the impact that doing this had on the people we support, because we've always said it's not about input, it's about impact.

…don't rely on them to find things. You have to give it to them, essentially, is what I'd say. And don't be afraid to show them things they've never asked for, because they may not know that you've done things. I think sometimes managers are reluctant to give them stuff because they're like the inspectors didn't ask for that.

Auditing isn't about just filling the gaps. It's solving the problem that caused the gaps to happen in the first place.

It's not a tick box exercise, and there isn't a one size fits all. So, your auditing, and the types of audits that you do have to make sense for your service and your service users.

…for example, if everyone's independently mobile and spends very little amount of time ever in a bed or a chair, and they're all relatively young, then a pressure area prevention ulcer type audit isn't going to be important…whereas, if I'm in a nursing home, there's multiple complex comorbidities, lots of people in beds and chairs, high level of potential risk, then my pressure area prevention, or it's going to be really detailed, and I'm going to do it often.

I have the saying that 99.9% of people who work in care, care, nobody wants to do a bad job. And so, if there are problems, it's not because anybody wanted there to be problems. So, there must be a reason. And so, think my advice would be, think broad, think big picture. Don't assume that just because there's a problem with a particular thing, like medicines management, it's to do with medicines management, it's probably got nothing to do with the actual medicines. It'll be to do with something else, and the bigger leadership piece around why that problem has occurred.

Look at your existing ratings for each key question and your overall rating and consider in terms of the scoring, where that means you are today.

In terms of preparation, the first thing I will be saying is understand your current position. So, look at your existing ratings for each key question and your overall rating and consider in terms of the scoring, where that means you are today…If you are RI or inadequate overall, they are going to look at the quality statements underneath those key questions.

Yeah. So that's a big hint, you could now go and look at their quality statements, they will be assessing those. Look at also the priority quality statements. And then consider what evidence you have, what is it you would like to show the inspectors and the assessors, when they ask for the information which you need to provide by way of evidence categories for each of those quality statements.

It's saying, okay, this is my position as a service. Therefore, it's these key questions that I now know that they're going to look at. And therefore, these are the quality statements, and therefore, these are the evidence categories. And then almost inserting, making yourself a list or a spreadsheet of the evidence you're going to have, because when they arrive, that's not the time you want to have to do that you want to be ready.