On 26th January 2020, as the UK was almost a month in to its third lockdown, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) launched a consultation on proposals for more flexible and responsive regulation. The opening of the consultation read, “The COVID-19 pandemic has made health and social care services think differently and we are no exception.
Routine inspections of care homes ceased on 16th March 2020, as the first wave of Covid-19 began. In the months that followed, CQC’s focus moved to using remote methods to give assurance of safety and quality of care, with physical inspections only taking place in extreme circumstances. It introduced an Emergency Support Framework, which used enhanced intelligence gathering to help local CQC teams give targeted advice and support.
Its interim guidance, released in September 2020, stated that its inspectors were ‘spending more time on virtual activity and less time on physical site visits. Our transitional regulatory approach may mean that we will request more information from providers in a digital format. This includes inspectors asking for access to digital care records when not on site.
Following this advice and the CQC consultation currently taking place, it is clear that inspections as we knew them will probably cease to exist. As the consultation document states, “The pandemic has made clear that some of the ways we currently work prevent us from being flexible and responding to situations as they happen”, along with an acknowledgement that, “There’s also more use of digital technology in health and social care…We’ve seen more services taking advantage of this during the pandemic.
This new approach, assuming it is adopted, will put providers who are already using care management software systems in a strong position. They and their staff are already confident with using and sharing data electronically, so sending data to CQC, which one can only assume will be part of their proposal of “using a wider range of evidence and tools to make assessments, rather than the comprehensive on-site visit”, will be a simple process.
There are many care management systems currently available and in use. However, their capabilities and features vary widely, with some offering little more than care planning whilst others include staffing, finance, activities, and other modules. Many providers are using multiple bolt-on fragmented/single point solutions, re-entering data onto different packages, or keeping part manual paper based records. The potential issue here is of course human error on the data entry, and subsequently inaccurate information being supplied to CQC.
PredicAire is the first holistic care management software system powered by Artificial Intelligence (Ai), and features the following modules:
The software uses a seamless single sign on cloud based system, with data housed under one ecosystem. It is available on multiple devices including desktop and android powered tablets and mobile devices, meaning that care staff can record seamless real-time observations enabling immediate early warning measures assuring residents’ wellbeing.
These features take digital care management to the next level, enabling providers to evidence high quality care to families, health professionals, and inspectors. In the near future the Quality Assurance module will also enable providers to carry out ‘mock inspections’, so that they can be sure that they are fully prepared when (or if?) CQC inspectors arrive (even if virtually).
Whatever form CQC inspections take in the future, PredicAire offers a solution which will meet and go beyond its requirements.
Contact us to book a demo and see how easy PredicAire will make it for providers to be inspection-ready.
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