A Collaborative Approach to Achieving Quality Care

www.rdbstar-rating.com

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Contents The Care Sector CrisisThe Care Sector Crisis 3

Quality is Everyone’s Business 4

Responding to the Care Challenge 5

The Pursuit of Quality Care 6

RDB Star Rating System Supports 7

The care sector is in crisis. With an increasing number of people living longer with multiple conditions which are more complex and chronic, coupled with historic underfunding, reflects a sector under significant stress and strain. The demand for good quality care with a genuine focus placed on personalisation, delivered by a responsive and collaborative system is growing by the day.

A vast majority of care homes offer residents invaluable support and enable a vital source of social interaction and safety for the residents. However, despite this, negative media reports focusing on the lack of care in some homes has become all too common. This portrayal of poor-quality care has only served to bring high levels of distress and concern to care home residents, their loved ones and the public.

With insufficient funding from councils, the care sector workforce has suffered greatly, with some providers withdrawing from Local Authorities’ contracts, where they felt the inadequate funding was not helping them to be responsive to people’s needs.

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Responding to the Care Challenge

Staff shortages are taking a significant toll on the wellbeing of the majority of the care workforce who are often becoming demoralised and, in some cases, leaving the sector altogether.

As the struggle to sustain profit margins persists, care providers will continue to close, which will be detrimental for people needing care. Without additional income, care homes will struggle to survive.

Improving the quality of social care for citizens must be a priority for everyone. Where there is opportunity, providers and organisations at national, regional and local levels must join together to share knowledge and expertise, with the goal of becoming more collaborative, integrated and user-centric.

Quality is Everyone’s Business

Driving quality is not the responsibility of any single part of the care sector alone. Quality is everyone’s business and better care standards require collaboration at every level of the system. Each part of that system must share and foster a common culture of putting the resident’s needs first.

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• champion the importance of good quality services

• promote a culture of openness and transparency, amongst all relevant organisations

• drive improvements with providers on their internal quality assurance processes

• ensure providers are accountable to the public

• challenge commissioning organisations about how they are monitoring quality

• ensure a joined-up approach, and good information-sharing, between agencies1

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Fostering collaborative thought and practice can overcome the challenges of the care sector’s current issues. The care sector

must partner with leading experts in the push towards real change and embrace the pioneering systems that

can enhance care standards. Providers should be encouraged and supported to work together more seamlessly and effectively.

Care sector collaboration will:

1Health and Care Quality Systems in practice

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has granted RDB Star Rating the UK’s first accreditation for private organisations that perform inspections of care homes. This helps to generate confidence in both the quality of the inspection services it provides, the quality of care offered by the residential care homes it inspects and to the public and the regulators.

Every care provider wants to deliver high quality, compassionate care and services, with dignity and respect. Now that CQC has

recently changed the frequency of of its inspections from 12 to 30 months, for homes rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, participating in the annual RDB Star Rating, can assist providers to maintain and improve their standards, year on year and between CQC inspections.

RDB Star Rating is supporting the care sector through this change, by raising standards in care, recognising ‘quality’ providers, unlocking the capacity for greater quality care and by focusing on residents’ needs and outcomes.

The RDB Star Rating model is dynamic and responsive in its approach and draws from best practice research, based on what is realistic and achievable and reflecting what good care providers do naturally. Care homes are evaluated against more than 200 RDB care standards which are annually updated and have all been cross referenced with CQC regulations and KLOE’s (key lines of enquiry).

The Pursuit of Quality Care“The RDB Star Rating has been at the forefront of measuring quality in residential care services for many years. The news that this excellent scheme has been accredited by UKAS, gives the general public, and care providers, an independently accredited view of quality. At a time when the quality of care services is constantly being scrutinised, and RDB Star Rating, is an independently accredited and universally acclaimed mark of quality.”

Professor Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England

Participating in the RDB Star Rating scheme is an invaluable way for care providers to demonstrate how they provide safe, effective, responsive, compassionate, high-quality care.

RDB Star Rating identifies best practice and quality of care through a rigorous annual assessment and star rating programme. This way quality providers can be locally identified, celebrated and promoted.

RDB helps care providers feel more valued, receive public recognition through the award of a star rating, along with the opportunity for enhanced fees from local authorities. Valuable feedback is offered to guide business improvement and growth and assist with the motivation and retention of staff.

RDB Star Rating identifies, celebrates and promotes ‘quality’ care providers

RDB Star Rating System Supports:

• Provides reliable, objective, up to date, holistic, externally accredited evidence from the care home’s annual RDB assessment

CQC

• Uses RDB evidence as part of it’s risk-based assessments of care and service’s

• Assists with CQC’s intelligence-driven approach to regulation

• Allows CQC to concentrate their efforts on providers, perceived to pose the greatest risk’s to their resident’s

• Enables them to spend their scarce resources delivering care and services to vulnerable people, instead of having to develop their own inspection units, to demonstrate ‘Best Value, Best Quality’

Local Clinical Commissioning groups and Local Authority Commissioners

• Assists with market shaping and sustainability, to ensure people have a choice of high-quality services

• Assists with compliance of the Government’s ‘Best Value’ directives.

• Evidence from the home’s annual RDB Star Rating accreditation would identify ‘quality’ providers

• Reduces the burden placed on providers through unnecessary data requests and inspections

• Assists homes with their regulatory compliance

• Gives providers an annual independent second opinion of the care and services they provide

• Gives recognition to providers delivering ‘high quality’ compassionate care and services

Providers

• Provides homes with a nationally, recognised and reliable symbol of ‘quality’

• Provides a powerful management tool

• Assists in attracting and retaining staff

• Supported by the social care sector

• Provides eligibility for reductions in insurance premiums

• Gives confidence to the banks

• Provides purchasers of care with up to date reliable and monitored standards, they can have confidence in

• Enables prospective clients and purchasers of care to make an informed choice

• Maintains public confidence in the social care sector

• Enhances transparency to purchasers of care

The Public

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With the RDB Star Rating scheme, the

care environment can experience deep and long-

lasting change. By taking advantage of their tailored model,

care outcomes, growth, service excellence and efficiency has the

opportunity to dramatically evolve. Let RDB Star Rating empower you and your

care team for stronger, financially rewarding and person-centred care.

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“Congratulations to all the staff at RDB Star Rating on becoming the first residential care home inspection organisation to achieve UKAS accreditation. This will help generate confidence in both the quality of the inspection services it provides, and the quality of care offered by the residential care homes it inspects.”

Paul Stennett,CEO of UKAS

The RDB Star Rating system was developed in 1997 to enhance transparency to purchasers of care. The provider receives public recognition through the award of a star rating, as well as valuable feedback to guide business improvement and growth and, to assist with the motivation and retention of staff.

RDB is accredited by UKAS, as an inspection body, in accordance with the recognised International Standard ISO/IEC 17020:2012. We are very proud to be the first company in the United Kingdom to achieve this award, which is specifically for the inspection of Adult Social Care Providers, in the residential care home sector.

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“Working with RDB over several years has made a significant contribution to raising the quality of life for so many people who live in residential care in Wigan. We have worked with home owners and managers who are committed to improving standards and providing value for money.”

Bernard Walker, Director of Social ServicesWigan Metropolitan Borough Council