Care Quality Commission and Primary Care
SFM Consulting has specialist expertise in the primary care arena - specifically the operational management (including HR) of private GP centres and nurse-led NHS walk in centres. SFM Consulting provides private healthcare providers with guidance on registration with the CQC and on-going compliance.
The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. From April 2010 a new registration process came into affect as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 which requires that from 1st October 2010 all providers of independent healthcare were registered with the Care Quality Commission. Those that were previously registered under the Care Standards Act 2000 will need to re-register as registration is not transferrable. The purpose of this new system is to make is easier for users to compare one provider with another. Registration requires providers to demonstrate that they meet the essential standards of quality and safety across all the regulated services they provide and is mandatory for providers of regulated activities and, in effect, it is a license to operate. The process isn’t just about the registration, as the CQC will continue to monitor whether providers are complying with the essential standards of quality and safety.
The previous regulations in the independent sector (Care Standards Act 2000) focused on systems, policies and processes that providers followed, whilst the new regulations focus on outcomes. Outcomes are results, and to demonstrate outcomes processes need to be in place to capture, measure and act on, results. Whilst the focus is different, in order to demonstrate that outcomes are delivered to the required standard and monitored regularly, providers will still need to have appropriate documentation in place as evidence.
Whether you are an existing provider that is re-registering, or new to this market, SFM Consulting can guide you and your team through the process and assess what is needed to demonstrate you meet the essential standards of quality and safety across all your regulated services.
NHS GP Services
Registration with the Care Quality Commission is a huge and time consuming task, and not surprisingly the CQC refer to it on their website as ‘the burden of registration,’ so NHS GP practices are keeping their fingers crossed that their registration is delayed from April 2012 to April 2013.
Already approximately 20,000 health and adult social care providers have gone through the new registration process which has highlighted areas where the process could be streamlined. As a consequence the Department of Health is consulting whether the timing of registration of GP practices can be delayed by 12 month to allow more time for the development of quality and accreditation schemes which will be used as evidence of compliance. It may also reduce the burden of registration.
The ‘burden’ can be reduced further if practices use their time wisely until they are required to register in April 2013. The CQC’s guidance document about compliance ‘Essential standards of quality and safety’ breaks down the regulations into a series of outcomes and prompts which they have developed to help providers comply with the regulations. Given there are 28 outcomes rather than enjoying the breathing space resulting from the delay, focusing on one or two outcomes a month will mean that when registration is looming the process won’t be so burdensome.
Dentistry
All primary dental providers, that provide regulated activities (eg treatment of disease, disorder or injury; surgical procedures; diagnostic and screening procedures) are required to be registered from April 2011. SFM Consulting can provide consultancy, support and training to individual practices or groups of practices with on-going compliance with regulations and preparation for inspection.
SFM Consulting can provide the following
- Understanding key documents and what they mean to a provider, for example: Guidance about compliance - Essential standards of quality and safety; Guidance about compliance - judgement framework; the Regulations; Summary of regulations, outcomes and judgement framework.
- Explanation about how to demonstrate and measure outcomes (results)
- What practice teams need to do to demonstrate compliance
- The role of the responsible individual
- Training for responsible individual
- Guidance on completion of the registration form and pre-registration self-assessment
- Training for whole teams on understanding the regulations, registration, on-going compliance etc
A thorough understanding of the regulations, and a background in marketing, has enabled SFM Consulting to assist clients with planning and writing websites, patient information, brochures etc.
