Improved historical information on care homes.

November 29, 2012 | By Jackie Brook |

Today the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is launching a raft of new digital improvements including an email alert service, an information sharing CQC Widget and improved historical information on care homes.

The email alert service will allow people to sign up for the most up-to-date standards and quality reports about care providers across England. The alerts will provide direct, timely and reliable access to CQC activity about health and social care providers.

The alerts service will continue to be developed and expanded to enable all users (including Commissioners, MPs and Journalists) to tailor their subscription by all types of services (Hospitals, Care Homes, Dentists and Other Services) as well as by geographical area, local authority or constituency.

The CQC widget gives one click access to the latest CQC inspection reports and findings. Organisations regulated by the CQC will be able to embed a summary of their inspection results on their own websites, and include a link to the full report on the CQC site. The reports tell the public whether organisations providing health and social care services meet our national quality and safety standards.

Over 770 organisations have snapped up the widget so far after its soft launch on 8 October 2012and a number of major directory sites are commited to using the widget including the Your Care Home, Good Care Guide, Compare Care Homes, and Find Me Good Care which was recently launched by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).

When providers and locations are no longer registered with the CQC, their profile pages on our website have historically been removed. This has meant inspection reports are no longer available for those services. But from Thursday CQC will start making these available to the public, allowing them to see the histories of care at a particular location. More than 8,000 location profiles and 2,500 inspection reports will become available again on the website.

The new service will allow people to find out about the history of care in an area as well as the services currently operating. These services include those where:

• The provider has voluntarily closed it – for example, a hospital relocated to a new site or a care home closed because it is no longer profitable.
• We have taken enforcement action to close it – for example, a clinic whose registration is cancelled after our inspectors found evidence of poor care or abuse.
• The legal entity providing the service has changed – for example, a dental surgery where a sole trader has been replaced by a partnership as the provider.
• A service has changed address – for example, a care home that moves to a new building around the corner to take advantage of better facilities.

Mark Sadler owner of Yourcarehome.co.uk commented;

‘It is really encouraging to see the CQC as well as other government bodies opening up and making so much information available to the public. This new philosophy of transparency and easy access to information is very positive, and will have a significant impact on the quality of care services in the years ahead’

‘From the discussions we have had with the Department of Health, the CQC and NHS Choices, we can see a real shift in the general attitude towards the sharing of information between organisations generally – not just between government organisations but a willingness to make government owned information accessible to the public through websites like ours. More significantly they have a genuine desire to take information gathered from companies like ourselves and Reevoo* and give it a wider audience through their networks’

He continued;

‘I think the message is loud, clear and simple.  The Government will gather all available trusted, quality related information about social care providers into one place and will then do their utmost to share it with anyone looking for a care service. The CQC widget will soon be available on our website, and will be available on many more care related websites in the UK such as Care Industry News’

‘For good care providers this is great news, both in terms of marketing and in terms of business as a whole.  For poor care providers, the sharing of information means there will be nowhere to hide!’

‘For all in social care it is time to understand and engage with their customers and with the CQC.’

Chair of the Care Quality Commission, Dame Jo Williams said:

“These new digital services are an important step in making it as easy as possible for people to find the information they want. They bring valuable CQC information about the quality of services to a wider audience, helping individuals make informed choices about care.”

http://www.careindustrynews.co.uk/2012/11/