At the start of the year, the Care Quality Commission in England published a consultation into changes to its regulatory systems, including those for adult social care services and primary care.
The consultation process found that many of the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) and prompts were duplicated. In response, the CQC say they have designed the new KLOEs to simplify the process for organisations that provide more than one type of service. The CQC say they have merged the two previous versions for residential and community care, added new content to strengthen specific areas and reflect current practice, and made some changes to the wording to improve and simplify the language to aid understanding. The CQC state they have also aligned, as much as possible, the wording of the KLOEs and prompts between the two assessment frameworks for healthcare services and adult social care services.
The new set of KLOEs, prompts, and ratings characteristics will come into effect in November 2017 and replace the previous separate versions for different type of services. These are still based around the five key questions and the Fundamental Standards but have been altered to make one framework for adult social care and one for primary healthcare.
There are about 50 new KLOEs and prompts and about 50 other wording changes to them, plus many have been moved between the five key questions. Being aware of the latest thinking, guidance and practice in the industry as well as attention to workforce development and training feature strongly in the ‘effective’ and ‘well-led’ key questions of the updated assessment frameworks. Care home and domiciliary care services providers will need to modify many of their compliance activities to meet these new standards.
To help providers to update their own internal assessment and training materials, the CQC have mapped the changes against the current frameworks and highlighted them in a separate document. These can be found by clicking here.
Service providers should read the updated frameworks carefully and ensure that they are aware of the changes that may apply to them from this autumn.
Are you ready for the new KLOEs?
The HCPA Impartial Feedback Service (IFS), which uses evaluation questions aligned directly to the CQC Key Lines Of Enquiry, has been updated to reflect the recent changes. Please visit our website to find out more.
Care Improvement Works – a brand new health and social care resources website
Care Improvement Works is a practical resource developed for managers, owners, quality improvement leads and others involved in reviewing practice and delivering the highest standards of care.
Care Improvement Works is a collaboration between SCIE, NICE and Skills for Care aimed at helping CQC regulated services in England. It is supported by Think Local Act Personal.
Using Care Improvement Works can help providers meet the CQC Fundamental Standards and deliver a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led service. The resource can help services achieve good and outstanding care. It includes 150+ products and services mapped to each area of inspection.
The website is easy to use and allows you to select areas of CQC inspection you wish to review, improve on or learn more about and access information, guidance and templates accordingly. It includes 150+ products and services mapped to each area of inspection. See for yourself by clicking here.