1.7.3 Review of Quality of Care

Clifford House has a number of internal and external quality assurance mechanisms

These include:

• Internal reviews, audits, inspections and annual reports.
• External reviews and statutory inspections
• Customer response surveys
• Young Person response surveys
• A Works Council
• Staff exit interviews
• Staff response surveys
• Improvement board
• Staff performance reviews and appraisals
• Complaints and whistle blowing procedures
• Regulation 33/34 reviews and quarterly reporting
• Monthly Schedule 6 monitoring
• Monthly Review of Quality of Care meetings
• Staff and Young People meetings
• Regulation 33 visits
• Fortnightly Registered Manager Meeting's.
• Annual Review of Policies and Procedures
• Annual Reviews of the Statements of Purpose and Health & Safety Audits and Financial Reviews

The key features are:

Improvement Board Reviews

This is a quarterly review report completed by a Registered Manager of the resources he/she manages. It includes an assessment evaluation and checks again the performance of the home and its achievements to meet the National Minimum Standards, Clifford House policies and procedures and planned outcomes for Young People as they link to the four objectives of Every Child Matters.

The review uses standardised forms that allows a numerical rating of performance of the home. The review will be appraised by the Registered Manager, a Clifford House director and Quality Assurance Manager.

Internal Reviews

Quality Control

This involves unannounced inspections to resources to set and check standards to identify good practice and shortfalls in practice with the objective of correcting the shortfall through advise, action plans or summary reviews. These can be carried out by the Quality Assurance Manager, Registered Manager and Company Directors.

Quality Assurance

This is a specific form of activity undertaken by the Quality Assurance Manager. It involves predicting and identifying potential pressure points across all functions of the organisation and acting to facilitate and improve practice, the service and evaluate difficulties.

Quality Management

This focuses on the culture of Clifford House as an organisation and how its concepts are represented in the attitude of staff and about how competent the work force is in carrying out the respective duties.

User Views

It is important to find out the views of Young People, staff teams and local authorities who purchase Clifford House's services. Clifford House have a variety of mechanisms to seek these views in order that the findings can be used for improvement.

Operational Information

Each month Clifford House convenes a Review of Quality of Care and Management Meeting attended by all Registered Managers, Assistant Registered Managers and Team Leaders.

Each week, a meeting is held between Team Leaders and Registered Managers. The information collected in these reviews is invaluable, since it informs service management, resource allocation, information about unmet needs and informs strategic planning.

It contributes to setting Clifford House's standards whilst allowing an ongoing operational performance review.

The focus of Clifford House's Quality Assurance strategies is to problem find, problem solve, evaluate, check and standard set. Aligned with the professional skills, expectations and managerial judgement that is required to determine what action are required.

A good quality assurance system pays attention to detail for which everyone at Clifford House has responsibility.

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