This is the Care Quality Commission’s e-bulletin to all LINks in England. It gives you an update on CQC activity most relevant to LINks. It also provides news on the development of HealthWatch England. It tells you where to go for more information, how to share information with us from your work, and how to get involved in what we do.
This is the second e-bulletin in 2011. Previous e-bulletins and quarterly bulletins from 2010 can be found at www.cqc.org.uk/localvoices
What’s new in this e-bulletin
1. CQC registers primary dental services and independent ambulance services
2. CQC publishes the State of Care report, setting out what we know about health and social care in England for 2010-11
3. CQC LINks advisory group meeting held on April 6th in London
4. Implications of the 'pause' for LINks
5. Department of Health publishes the HealthWatch Transition Plan for 2011-2012 setting out what CQC will be doing to support the establishment of HealthWatch England
6. How you can contribute to the development of HealthWatch England
What to look out for?
CQC to launch consultation on Social Care Excellence Scheme in May 2011
Watch out for our guide for LINks on working with CQC
Tell us about your work with CQC and we will share it in this bulletin
CQC registers primary dental services and independent ambulance services
We have now registered or are in the process of fully registering primary dental services (including all dental practices). You can see a register of these services on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
We have also registered or are in the process of fully registering independent ambulance services.
We continue to monitor all health services, adult social care services and independent health care services to ensure they meet the essential standards of quality and safety.
Your LINk can share information with us about any of these services, including dentists and independent ambulance services – to help us monitor the standards. The views and experiences of people who use services and the findings from your LINk’s work are very important to us. You can send information using our form on the website at www.cqc.org.uk/localvoices or to your local CQC contact. You can read more about the essential standards of quality and safety that we use to judge all these services at www.cqc.org.uk/_db/_documents/Quick_guide_to_the_essential_standards.doc
CQC publishes the State of Care report 2010-11
CQC has recently published our State of Care report setting out what we know about health and social care in England 2010-11. This is our second state of care report, which we produce for parliament and the public.
We have also recently published the results of our NHS staff survey and our review of people’s first contact with social services departments in England. Our review of stroke services in England was published earlier this year. For details of all our recent publications please go to www.cqc.org.uk
CQC’s LINks advisory group met in London on 6th April
Thanks to all those LINks who attended our LINks advisory group. The group is open to any LINk and is a forum for LINks to advise CQC on our work and to share practice about how LINks can work with the regulator.
This meeting was attended by 28 LINks and included presentations from 6 LINks who have worked on the national CQC development project (see more below). We also had an update on HealthWatch England developments and discussed LINks ideas about how CQC, HealthWatch England and local HealthWatch should fit together. Finally, we asked LINks advice about the sections we should have for LINks on our new CQC website to be launched in June. Notes of this and previous CQC LINks advisory group meetings are available from involvement.edhr@cqc.org.uk
The next CQC LINks advisory group will be held in June. Date and venue details will be sent out to all LINks shortly.
HealthWatch
Implications of the 'pause' for LINks
As you are no doubt aware, the Government has launched a "listening exercise" during the natural break in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.
Full details are available in "Working together for a stronger NHS", published on 6 April.
Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS, issued a letter to colleagues: "Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS - Managing the transition". The letter says (page 6): "because of the pause in the legislative process and...subject to the results of the listening exercise and the passage of the Bill, all of the statutory changes which were due to take place in April 2012 will take place no earlier than July 2012." The letter does not specifically refer to Local HealthWatch, but it is included in this change.
CQC and the DH will need to work through the implications of this both for LINks and for the development of HealthWatch. This will, of course, include working with the joint HealthWatch Programme Board and HealthWatch Advisory Group. We know that many of you will have questions about what this means for you locally. Although the date change will have some impact, the main messages in the Transition Plan still apply, and work on developing HealthWatch both locally and nationally will continue. We will let you have more information as soon as possible.
Full details are available in "Working together for a stronger NHS", published on 6 April.
Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS, issued a letter to colleagues: "Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS - Managing the transition". The letter says (page 6): "because of the pause in the legislative process and...subject to the results of the listening exercise and the passage of the Bill, all of the statutory changes which were due to take place in April 2012 will take place no earlier than July 2012." The letter does not specifically refer to Local HealthWatch, but it is included in this change.
CQC and the DH will need to work through the implications of this both for LINks and for the development of HealthWatch. This will, of course, include working with the joint HealthWatch Programme Board and HealthWatch Advisory Group. We know that many of you will have questions about what this means for you locally. Although the date change will have some impact, the main messages in the Transition Plan still apply, and work on developing HealthWatch both locally and nationally will continue. We will let you have more information as soon as possible.
HealthWatch development programme
CQC and the Department of Health have developed a joint programme to deliver HealthWatch. This includes a HealthWatch programme board that provides strategic advice about the development of HealthWatch, makes recommendations and advises on possible risks. There are two LINk representatives on the programme board. One attends every meeting of the board, the other is rotating.
The HealthWatch advisory group provides expert, practical advice and makes recommendations to the programme board about how best to make HealthWatch work. Each government region has a LINks representative on the advisory group. To contact your regional representative, please first contact the chair of your LINk, who will then put you in contact with your regional representative.
The minutes from each programme board and advisory group are available on the CQC website at http://www.cqc.org.uk/aboutcqc/whatwedo/improvinghealthandsocialcare/healthwatch.cfm
The minutes include details of the discussions and decisions made as well as the attendance at each meeting.
HealthWatch transition plan
The Department of Health has published its transition plan for HealthWatch, setting out what will happen to set up HealthWatch England, support LINks during the transitional year, and the establishment of local HealthWatch. On pages 29 and 30 of the plan are a list of topics for discussion. If you have views on any of these topics please feed them in via your regional representative. You can access the transition plan on our website http://www.cqc.org.uk/aboutcqc/whatwedo/improvinghealthandsocialcare/healthwatch.cfm
HealthWatch online forum
We are still in the process of developing the HealthWatch online forum. As soon as it’s available we will send an email to everyone who has expressed an interest in joining up. If you haven’t expressed an interest in joining up yet, but would like to, please email enquiries.healthwatch@cqc.org.uk.
What to look out for?
CQC to launch consultation on Adult Social Care Excellence Scheme in May
We will be consulting on this scheme that replaces the ratings system for adult social care. We will let all LINks know when this is launched and we would welcome your views.
Our new guide for LINks about working with CQC
We have now completed our national development project working with LINks from Plymouth, Gloucestershire. Leeds, Sefton, Derby, Wakefield, East Sussex and Bromley. These LINks have been looking at how they can work more closely with CQC over the last few months, using projects from their work programmes as examples. We published some of their stories so far in January 2011 – called CQC and LINks; Working to improve care available at www.cqc.org.uk/localvoices
We are now about to share all the work from the project in a guide for LINks. It tells you more about CQC, what LINks and CQC can achieve together, what you can expect in your local relationship with CQC, how to share information with us, and top tips about the information we can use.
The eight LINks in the project have also produced some tools and templates that you can adapt for your own LINk’s work with CQC. These include:
· model agendas for local LINk and CQC meetings;
· spreadsheets for recording information from local people;
· reporting templates for sharing information with CQC;
· protocols for local relationships and communication with CQC,
· and statements for use with service providers about how your LINk works with CQC.
The LINks in the project have been looking at how to work with CQC on improving hospital services, care in care homes, GPs and primary care services and in using information from the public, PALS and local enter and view reports to help CQC monitor services.
We will send the guide to all LINk hosts and individuals on our database electronically in the next few weeks. Printed copies will be sent to all LINk hosts in May. We will also make the guide available along with all the tools and templates on our website. A very big thankyou to all the LINks involved for all for their hard work and enthusiasm.
We hope to run further projects like this in 2011-12, looking at how we can share information and build closer relationships as we move towards the setting up of HealthWatch England. If your LINk would like to get involved in any new projects with us, please let us know at involvement.EDHR@cqc.org.uk
Count Me In Census
We have recently published the final Count Me In census about the ethnicity of mental health inpatients. More details on our website. The findings continue to show differences in mental health admission and detention rates between black and minority ethnic groups and white groups, and also differences within minority ethnic groups.
Tell us about your work with CQC – and we will share it in this bulletin
We agreed at our last CQC LINks advisory group that we will use this bulletin to help share learning from LINks about working with CQC. If your LINk has been working positively with CQC in your area and you want to let other LINks know, please send a short paragraph about what your LINk and CQC did together, and what you achieved to involvement.EDHR@cqc.org.uk. We will publish it in the next e-bulletin. Examples of the sorts of information you have shared with CQC from your work, or from local people about their care, is particularly useful – especially if it has led to some improvements in local services. We look forward to hearing from you!
Where to go for more information
telephone CQC at 03000 616161 or general enquiries at enquiries@cqc.org.uk
The involvement team who produce this bulletin can be contacted at involvement.EDHR@cqc,org.uk or via the general telephone number above.
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