QUALITY ASSURANCE POLICY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Global Domiciliary Care Ltd is offering Services to our clients and is committed to provide the highest possible quality of service to the organizations who purchase services on their behalf and all other customers and stakeholders. We believe that, no matter how good our present service standards, there is always room for further improvement.

All of our services are registered under the CQC (Care Quality Commission). The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of all health and adult social care in England.

CQC regulates care provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies and voluntary organizations. Its aim is to make sure better care is provided for everyone – in hospitals, care homes and people’s own homes. CQC publish its inspection reports on their website www.cqc.org.uk, which also provides details of all social care services available throughout the UK.

Our quality assurance framework will incorporate the Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP).

The high standard of service we aim for will be achieved through the implementation of CIP, which will cover all our operational functions from delivery of care and support through to our internal management systems. Staff at all levels of the organization will be involved in CIP and this commitment to staff involvement will be monitored to keep on track.

• We aim to provide evidence-based and continually improving services, which will help promote both good outcomes and best value, which includes:

• Ensuring a person-centred approach to the care and support for everyone.

• Enabling the people, we support to set Customer Standards and involving them in the auditing process.

• Internal Quality Monitoring Visits identifying recommendations and requirements to ensure the improvement and development of the service, as well as identifying commendations for good practice and achievements.

• Obtaining feedback from others who are involved with our services, especially healthcare professionals and relatives.

• Policies, procedures and guidelines, which detail how these agreed levels of service are to be achieved.

• Auditing of our systems to ensure that our high-quality standards are maintained and to highlight areas for improvement.

2. EXTERNAL

• Our organisation works within several externally imposed quality frameworks that define standards. The most important of these include but not limited:

• National Minimum Standards (Care standards Act 2000)

• Essential Standards of Quality & Safety set by the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

• Other regulatory standards, e.g. Health & Safety Executive, Fire Authority, Environmental Department

• Contracts compliance as set by the client or representative and purchasing authority

In general, these external quality frameworks all aim to ensure that quality is built into services through setting and implementation of standards, through processes for review, and through monitoring to ensure that services meet the needs of service users and other stakeholders.

3 INTERNAL

We are aware that other key aspects of quality assurance include mechanisms for the monitoring or auditing of services to ensure they are being delivered as originally intended.

These include:

• Monitoring Visits

Unannounced visit by someone not in charge of the day-to-day running of the service provided. The visit provides an opportunity for the registered provider to monitor the quality of the service being provided to the service user at home or in the care home.

We will concentrate on aspects of the service that people using it have told them they need to improve ∙

Monthly Managers check

(Monthly audit of Essential Standards of Quality & Safety, examination of buildings, fixtures, fittings, risk assessments, equipment, policies, procedures, records, reports)

• Complaints monitoring and effective “open door” policy

• Policies, Procedures & Practices

(Review of policies, procedures and practices c.onsidering changing legislation and reflection of good practice as advised by appropriate authorities or multidisciplinary body)

• Satisfaction surveys – service users’ questionnaires, family/advocates questionnaires, stakeholder questionnaires

(The view of family and friends and of stakeholders in the community (e.g. GPs, chiropodist, District Nurses) is sought on how the care provided is achieving its goals for those people who use the service.

Further consultation mechanism such as meetings with service users or their representatives can also help to provide adequate confidence that the care provided is satisfactorily meeting the expectations of stakeholders and service users alike as set out at the point of accepting the package.

Service User Involvement – Quality assurance begins and ends with the service users – the key customer. In order for any quality assurance programme to be successful, their views must be sought on a regular basis and action taken if a service no longer appears to be meeting their needs.

4. PARTICIPATION & CONSULTATION

• Service user meetings – Meetings will be held at least every six months to enable service users to have a forum to share and discuss issues concerning the running of the home and its activities. ∙ Family meetings – to enable families to work in partnership with staff and service user. ∙ Key working meetings – to ensure all aspects of the key working contract is fulfilled. ∙ One-off meetings – Where there are specific important issues or changes on which service users should be consulted.

• Joint staff and service user meetings – A representative from the service users will meet regularly with staff to jointly discuss issues concerning the service provided, our policies and procedures. ∙ Involvement in staff recruitment – A representative from the service users will be involved in the choice of carer to be provided in some cases where there is a preference.

• Care plan review meetings are to be held monthly for each service user, the service user or its representative can attend if at all possible and the meeting recorded in the care plan, otherwise any concerns relating to the service user from the feedback notes will be addressed.

5. SERVICE USER SATISFACTION SURVEY

Service users will be given the opportunity to say what they think about the service through a service users survey carried out regularly.

The survey will be confidential, but a summary of the results will be available and given to all the service users, CQC, family/advocates and stakeholders can also view the summaries.

5. VIEWS, SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS

The views, suggestions and complaints of service users and others concerning any aspect of the running of the service will be welcomed, listened to, and acted upon promptly.

6. INSPECTIONS

Inspections are unannounced; if service users will have at any time of inspection restricted and private access to inspectors during the inspection if requested.

7. STAKEHOLDERS, FAMILY/ADVOCATE INVOLVEMENT

The organization will involve other relevant groups, in order to ensure a quality service is being delivered.

8.SATISFACTION SURVEYS

Satisfaction questionnaires are to be sent to outside professionals or stakeholders annually, families/advocates and to staff members of Global Domiciliary Care Ltd. These surveys are confidential, but summaries of the results are collatedand made available.

9. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN

The service will have a continuous development plan for quality improvement, based upon feedback from service users, staff and others. The improvement plan will become part of an agreed ‘live’ ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

The plan becomes ‘live’ because it is regularly reviewed, amended and added to the files which may be in situ for continuous improvement and may include the following:

∙ Discovered – complaints, suggestions, and compliments, good and innovative practice. ∙ Health & Safety – risk assessments, fire and environmental officer.

• Inspections visits – management visits, CQC inspections.

• Management – budgets, procedures, guidelines, codes of practice.

• Service users – surveys, meetings and individual comments.

• Staff – meetings & individual comments, training, conferences.

10. COMPLAINT POLICY

A complaint is any form of contact from, or on behalf of, a service user/visitor who is not satisfied with any part of the service.

Our target is to give you no cause for complaint but, we realize that, even in the best run organizations, there may be times when things go wrong and you may not be happy with the service you receive and we need you to tell us about it.

We aim to resolve all complaints about our services in an effective and timely manner by working with individual complainants to find a resolution.

We are committed to continually improving our service, so all our complaints are analysed and used to enhance the way we deliver our service and care for our service users in line with our complaint’s policy.

We may ask your feedback on the service that you have received.

Please take the time and opportunity to let us know your views as your feedback is valuable to us. If you have any suggestions or ideas that you would like to share with us, please let us know.

10.1 HOW TO COMPLAIN

In person:Voice complaint verbally, to the person-in-charge of shift, within 24 hours of incident, who should attempt to resolve it on the spot.

IF UNRESOLVED

Voice complaint verbally to the Manager or Directors/Proprietors within 48 hours of incident, who will attempt to resolve the issue, as soon as possible.

By telephone or in writing (letter, fax, email, complaint form) submitted to the care office (address in the service user guide in the bedroom and displayed at the care home)

Who will investigate the issue fully and then within a minimum of 28 days, give a written report to the service user / relative, explaining fully the actions taken. Where investigations are not concluded in 28 days, you will be contacted and kept updated.

IF THIS IS STILL INSUFFICIENT:

Funded service users can contact their allocated care manager. (This person will be the Social Worker responsible for the placement to the service and continued monitoring)

Private self-funding service users can also contact the ombudsman as detailed below: Ombudsman Service.

Contact Telephone: 0345 015 4033

Or complete an on-line complaint form

FURTHER TO THIS:

Contact the regulatory authority

Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Tel: 03000 616161 Fax: 03000 616171 Email: enquiries@cqc.org.uknq

Quality Assurance Policy

Status of Policy/Procedure

Approved

Title of Policy

Author/Reviewer

Annually

Review cycle:

Date of development

Dr Nujhat Jahan

December 2022

December 2023

Date of next review

GLOBAL DOMICILIARY CARE LTD.

QUALITY ASSURANCE POLICY