Our world is ageing. The number of elderly people is increasing rapidly than in any other age group, thanks to low birth rates and longer life expectations. However, this scenario reduces labour forces, cuts down investment rates while increasing healthcare expenses by a great deal.
The growing number of older people not only brings changes in our community but also tends to elevate the pressure on hospital admissions and primary care. Even though most elderly people rely on family and friends to help them out with everyday needs, now the attention has turned towards care homes and nursing homes.
Now let us break it down and take a look at the number of facts and figures, shall we?
- There are now over 15.5 million people aged 60 or over, making up 23% of the UK population.
- There are nearly 18,000 care homes across the UK. About 70% of these are residential care homes, while the remaining 30% are nursing homes.
- The UK care home population is nearly 500,000.
Although many of the care homes and nursing homes ensure to provide a high level of service, there have been several controversies surrounding the system. In recent years, the quality of services provided in care homes has been garnered many negative headlines.
What should social care and home care systems do to ensure excellent care?
Having a multi-faceted approach with a solid risk and compliance management strategy would be an ideal way to deliver the best standards of care and preventing problems.
Care Quality Commission (CQC)
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is England's independent health and social care regulator, set up in 2009. Its goal is to make sure that health and social care services offer individuals safe, effective, compassionate, and high-quality care, and it continually encourages providers to improve their services. In addition to care homes, the CQC controls a variety of additional health and wellness services, such as
- Ambulances
- Children’s services
- Clinics
- Community-based services
- Dentists
- General practitioners and doctors
- Hospices
- Hospitals
- Mental health services
- Services in your home
The CQC inspects and regulates services to ensure that they fulfil basic quality and safety requirements. It publishes its findings regularly and assigns performance ratings to assist individuals in making educated decisions regarding their health care. In other parts of the United Kingdom, this task is conducted by other national registering authorities such as:
- Scotland - the Care Inspectorate
- Wales - Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW)
- Northern Ireland - the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA)
Each regulatory institution has its own set of legal policies and standards, but they all work together to guarantee that care is standardized and of great quality.
All CQC-regulated organizations must have an effective governance framework to ensure that they fulfil the appropriate requirements. During the assessment, CQC will check if there are well-defined processes in the organization to track and regulate the quality and safety of care. These systems must also assist the service in improving and reducing health, safety, and welfare hazards. The CQC generates Quality and Risk Profiles (QRPs) for each service as part of its assessments. These allow the CQC to keep track of compliance. Providers can also use the data to assist them to manage risk and improve the quality of their services.
Managing risk and compliance is a challenging yet crucial task. That is why it would be ideal to opt for a software solution to do that job for you.
Having a compliance management software solution, like JMS One, would help your organization in keeping track of the various aspects of compliance and regulations. Not only it helps in monitoring, managing and mitigating risks, but also streamlines the process and improves overall efficiency.
