“If the new government is serious about finding workforce solutions, then it has to deal with the appalling cultural issues at the heart of care – particularly the CQC”
The founder of one of the UK’s most innovative care providers has blamed the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for making the sector “unpleasant” to work in.
His comments come following the publication of an interim report that found significant failings in the effectiveness of the CQC, as well as a new Workforce Strategy by Skills for Care – the workforce development body for adult social care in England – which made recommendations to improve attraction, retention, training and transformation within the sector.
Paul de Savary, who has recently stepped down as Managing Director of Home From Home Care which he co-founded in 2004, welcomed the strategy but points the finger at the CQC for many of the sector’s workforce challenges.
Home From Home Care runs 11 homes in Greater Lincolnshire for adults with learning disabilities and autism and it is currently fully staffed, overcoming the sector-wide challenges in recruitment thanks to its culture of innovation and compassion.
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Home From Home Care, Paul de Savary said:
“Skills for Care should be commended for its initiative in being endorsed by key parties. The endorsement from James Bullion the chief inspector of CQC immediately stands out, given that less than a week ago Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care declared CQC “not fit for purpose”, a view shared by many of us in the sector.
“CQC’s endorsement is tainted by the fact that it represents a serious challenge to the strategy, as it is CQC’s inability to understand and regulate niche areas of the market that has turned it into an unpleasant and unattractive place to work. This is combined with the hostile way in which a number of CQC’s inspectors carry out inspections, the untouchability of an organisation that has made itself unaccountable and a blame culture where the failings of government to implement a workforce strategy and the failure of commissioners to inflate fees for long term care, all end up as operational issues at the feet of the Registered Home Manager and their team.
“If the new government is serious about this workforce strategy, then it has to deal with the appalling cultural issues at the heart of care – CQC. It has to create an environment based on a “Just Culture”, where if your intentions are good but you make an honest mistake or a poor decision, you will be treated fairly.
“Care is not manufacturing or a typical service industry, but an essential segment of life requiring creativity and empathy from its workforce to find everyday solutions to the challenges of supporting complex individuals with fluctuating everyday needs, whereas CQC’s over-reliance on binary data is killing the essential human spirit of creativity. I think we all need to ask ‘why would someone be attracted to work in this pernicious environment?’.
“So, overall, this is a great strategy, but unless there is 180-degree change in regulation, like so many good ideas before it, it is doomed to failure – And yet as we are proving every day at Home From Home Care, things could so easily be so different!”
Last week, an independent review of the CQC identified significant internal failings, with the government telling the CQC to take immediate steps to restore confidence.
The interim report found inspections were well below where they were pre-Covid. It also found a lack of clinical expertise among inspectors, a lack of consistency in assessments and problems with CQC’s IT system. It said these failings mean the regulator is currently unable to consistently and effectively judge the quality of health and care services, and social care providers are waiting too long for their registration and rating to be updated, with implications for local capacity.
In response, the government has announced the CQC’s assessment frameworks are to be reviewed, the CQC will be subject to an increase in the level of government oversight, and the ways the CQC determines ratings are to be made more transparent.
However, Paul de Savary believes that the problems with the CQC also have an impact on recruitment and retention within the sector, with the latest data showing there are 131,000 vacant posts in the care sector, a vacancy rate of 8.3%.
The interim review of the CQC was published shortly after the publication of the Skills for Care Workforce Strategy which aims to improve the quality of roles in adult social care, ensuring that the sector can attract and keep enough people with the right skills and values to provide the best possible care and support for the people who draw on it.
These include joined-up and consistent action to improve pay, terms and conditions for care workers, continued government investment in training and career pathways, mandating strategic workforce planning and the creation of a central body to drive delivery of this.
The strategy was created in collaboration with the Care Quality Commission and representatives of care workers, employers, local authorities, Integrated Care Systems and people who draw on care and support – along with organisations from the health and education sectors.
You can read more about the Skills for Care Workforce Strategy at https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/news-and-events/news/turning-point-for-social-care-as-the-sector-launches-a-workforce-strategy
To learn more about Home From Home Care, visit www.homefromhomecare.com