The Committee will receive a presentation providing information on the preparation for the Adult Social Care Assurance inspection.  

Jo Lappin, Assistant Director for Safeguarding, Quality, Performance & Practice, gave a presentation providing information on the Striving for Excellence project and the preparations made for assurance of the Council’s Adult Social Care functions by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The presentation explained that the Health and Care Act 2022 gave the CQC new regulatory powers to undertake independent assessments of local authorities’ delivery of regulated care functions as set out in Part 1 of the Care Act 2014.

The CQC assurance process would look for evidence that local authorities were meeting their Care Act 2014 responsibilities, including looking for evidence that risks had been identified and were being managed and that improvement plans were being delivered and were effective. The CQC would use a range of methods to gather evidence and conduct the assurance process. It was expected that assessments, which would begin from April 2023, would move away from physical inspections being the only method for making judgements and would also rely on the analysis of various data sources that measured quality, risk and performance utilising indicators such as ombudsman judgements, statutory returns and benchmarking which would be done virtually. It was anticipated that the CQC would publish its ratings for individual Councils after a national baseline had been established.

In September 2022 the CQC had published a Draft Local Authority Assessment Framework which outlined the CQC’s approach and explained that local authorities would be assessed against four key themes, each with several quality statements mapped to them. The four key themes were:

1.             How Local Authorities work with people - assessing needs (including for carers), supporting people to live healthier lives, prevention, wellbeing, information, and advice; 

2.             How Local Authorities provide support - market shaping, commissioning workforce equality, integration and partnership working; 

3.             How Local Authorities ensure safety within the system - safeguarding, safe system and continuity of care;

4.             Leadership – wider culture, strategic planning, learning, improvement, innovation, governance, management and sustainability. 

The presentation noted that, in December 2022, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) had published ‘Getting Ready for Assurance: A Guide to Support the Development of Your Adult Social Care Self-Assessment’, which had been designed to enable local authorities to complete an objective, honest and authentic self-assessment process. It had been agreed that the Council would utilise this approach to prepare for CQC assurance. The Council’s preparations and the resulting improvement journey had been given the project name ‘Striving for Excellence’. Striving for Excellence aimed not only to prepare the Council for CQC assessment but to also drive improvement more generally across Council services.

Work had commenced to complete the self-assessment process which would help to determine strengths and to identify risks to delivery. This would inform an improvement plan which would need to be robustly monitored and managed to ensure its effectiveness. This process would provide the assurance that CQC would be seeking via their assessment.

To provide an accurate picture, the self-assessment team would need to be informed by the experiences of service users, carers, professionals working in adult social care and other partners. All assertions would need to be evidenced with appropriate documentation with the greatest weight given to experience and outcomes. To ensure ownership and transparency the self-assessment would need to include evidence of formal endorsement from those with the responsibility for delivering local priorities and plans and key contributors, including the Council Leader; Chief Executive; Lead Member for Adult Social Care; Director of Social Care and Health; Director of Public Health; Safeguarding Adults Board chair; senior health colleague; Care Provider(s); a VCS representative; service user and carer representatives.

The presentation noted some of the learning that had arisen following the CQC testing its proposed assessment methodology at two test and learn sites during the summer of 2022 and summarised some of the findings of The Kings Fund research that had also been carried out during the summer.

The presentation listed some of the project’s achievements. These included:

·       A Project Manager resource being identified and allocated;

·       The securing of Delivery Fund resources;

·       The completion of an initial self-assessment to establish baselines and agree priorities - the self-assessment was being updated to bring it in line with the guidance published by the LGA and ADAS in December 2022 (see above);

·       Procurement of a repository system called Tri-X to provide a centralised place to store policies and procedures;

·       Drafting of a strategy for consulting with service users;

·       Attendance at Peer Comparator Group sessions with Medway and Portsmouth councils;

·       Formation of a Steering Group, governance process/delivery channels.

The presentation concluded by suggesting that an update could be brought back to the Committee in May 2023 to provide further information on the outcome of the self-assessment and subsequent improvement journey.

Resolved –

(1)          That the presentation be noted;

(2)          That an update be brought to the next ACE Committee meeting providing information on the outcome of the outcome of the self-assessment and subsequent improvement journey.