Another Politicians answer to Social Care fuding

Mr Corbyn - yet another Politician who has no clue as to what is needed within the Social Care sector, it is not whether homes for example are privately owned or in  local authority ownership, what is wrong with these Politicians, oh yes of course they don't 'live in the real world'.

For all our well educated and very clever Politicians here is a simple answer. Provide adequate funding for Social Care, and don't tell us there are x thousands or millions of pounds being invested or promised. Secondly invest in the hardworking staff (our Members) who work within the sector, recognise them as a profession and value them, including with pay that reflects a profession.

The solution is simple, but of course Politicians of all backgrounds simply use issues like this to try and buy votes at any given forthcoming election.

Having said this, there is of course also a need to remove the CQC and replace it with a body that is more about improving (in a supportive manner) quality than simply adding more pressure onto Registered Managers.

Lets face it there is something fundamentally flawed with the CQC when they take a year to provide an inspection report on a residential care home, a year, incompetence of massive proportions.

CQC = Quality?

A Residential Care Home in Hampshire recently received its inspection report a yare after CQC had inspected the home, really? yes really!

You might aske yourself the question (as I have); "How can this possibly aid the improvement of quality and raise standards?" Just imagine if as a Registered Manager you had a member of staff that was underperforming and you took a year to tell them that this was the case, this is not how you support performance improvement.

Take another scenario, CQC ask you to provide information to help them judge how well you are performing, does anyone really think that they would just let it go, they would be on your back and would be thinking that you are pretty unprofessional.

Yet the more I experience CQC, both through my own personal experience and through Members\contacts in Social Care the more I begin to see just how unprofessional CQC can be and yet they are supposed to be the guardians of quality. When will someone take CQC to task over this kind of incident?

I believe that there needs to be a review of the way Social Care is monitored and quality is continually improved, including whether CQC are a positive or negative influence.

Shared Society

First we had the big society by Mr Cameron and now we have shared society by Mrs May, if they were sat next to each other in an exam they would be done for cheating (copying each others work).

Why? why another soundbite when for example the Social Care system is constantly struggling financially? The Social Care system has some of the most dedicated professionals working under extreme pressure for often low pay, owners are struggling with lack of funding and an inconsistent CQC often behaving in an intimidating manner and most importantly a vulnerable Client group being let down by not just a Conservative Government currently, Labour in the past and even the Lib Dems when in 'power' recently.

So a question to our Politicians - Are you going to continue with soundbites and claims that x million pounds are being put into the system or are you going to have the decency to do something meaningful to improve the current situation?

Time for change

With the New Year almost upon us I have been reflecting on quality of service delivery within the Social Care sector. As with most occupational areas there will always be a spectrum from excellent to poor. The question is how do we raise standards, improve professionalism and thus raise the quality of service delivery within Social Care?

In my view it is not through Local Authority inspectors or the 'wonderful CQC' real improvements have to come from the grassroots of the sector, what does this mean. I believe it means training, developing and nurturing a more professional approach those who work at the sharp end, Carers, Cleaners, Shift\Team Leaders and Registered Managers.

Yes we need to see much more funding going into Social Care, but we also need to take the above approach and finally begin to value and recognise Social Care work as a Profession, then we will see sustainable improvement in Social Care where it is needed.

Don't forget Staff in Social Care

With all the talk about funding Social Care adequately and indeed it needs to be by Government, let us not forget about valuing and recognising the people working within Social Care as the Professionals that the majority are.

A recent tweet suggested that the Care Quality Commission were thinking of using telephone calls to check on the quality of GP's. Clearly this is a different environment from Social Care businesses e.g. Residential or Domiciliary care, however it is a more general worry that the body responsible for quality of care is thinking of simply telephoning someone to establish if good quality is being delivered.

Our view at the Association of Social Care professionals is that improved quality needs to come from those working at the 'sharp end' in Social Care, this means achieving a couple of things;

Firstly overall professionalization of the Social Care sector.

Secondly individuals at all levels, Care worker, Team Leader\Supervisor Registered Manager need to both operate at a professional level but as important are trained and developed as professionals. This then needs regular follow-up Continuous Professional Development.

Finally the Social Care sector and those working therein need to be recognised and valued as professionals.

As far as we are concerned this should happen, the responsibility placed upon all concerned in Social Care in itself is reason enough to call it a Profession.

For more information about how we are supporting Social Care as a Profession visit: www.tasdcp.org