Salopian Care is passionate about maintaining high standards of care and believes that this quality approach must be embedded in the normal day to day processes for all groups of service users, in this way quality becomes the norm and not an overhead. We are a small but mature organisation with well-developed processes within the CQC inspection regime. Maintaining quality is a continuous journey and we see areas for improvement as a strength not weakness.

We support the “Driving Up Quality Code”

We are happy to support external initiatives with objectives to improve the performance and perception of the Care Sector. “Driving Up Quality Code” is one such initiative; it is a voluntary code of conduct created by the Driving Up Quality Alliance, made up of national member organisations that collectively represent 80% of all learning disability service providers in the country. It was launched in September 2013 and is endorsed by the Minister of State for Care and Support, the Department of Health and the Care Quality Commission. Its primary aims include improving quality in learning disabilities services and promoting a culture of honesty and transparency. Organisations that sign up to the Driving Up Quality Code are expected to assess themselves annually and publish what they find, with an action plan for improvement. Salopian Care applies these principles to all of its Care Groups and by signing up to the Driving Up Quality Code in December 2013 we made a commitment to the principles of the Code and to be transparent about how we are adopting these principles within the work of our organisation.

Specifically The Code want to achieve the following:

• Drive up quality in services for people with learning disabilities that goes beyond minimum standards.
• Create and build a passion in the learning disability sector to provide high quality, values-led services.
• Provide a clear message to the sector and the wider population about what is and what is not acceptable practice.
• Promote a culture of openness and honesty in organisations.
• Promote the celebration and sharing of the good work that is already out there.

5 Areas of Focus

The Code uses 5 areas of focus to help deliver quality improvements:-

• Support is focussed on the person.
• The person is supported to have an “ordinary” and meaningful life.
• Care and support focusses on people being happy and having a good quality of life.
• A good culture is important to the organisation.
• Managers and board members run the organisation well.

Initial Driving Up Quality Statement

We have reviewed the 5 focus areas and seek to show how we are positioned organisationally in those areas and what opportunities we have for change / improvement.

The key actions for 2019 are:-

• To investigate and action the opportunities identified in the initial review.
• Agree areas of focus for self-assessment; we like 80:20 approach seek the biggest benefit, our initial opportunities are structured into the 5 focus areas, but passed back for action to the organisational functional units for action.
• Identify the “questions to be asked” in the review, this will help the review focus and uncover good practice and room for improvement.
• The review structure will also identify what has been done /achieved with an impetus to provide evidence and story examples to share best practice and celebrate good performance. Celebrating good performance is an area that we recognise that we could improve on. Provide a measure of the effects of the improvements.
• Carry out the self-assessment, produce a report and list further actions for the next cycle of improving (Kaizen is the practice of continuous improvement).
• Resolve how we introduce some form of “independence” into the review, as a small organisation we do not have funds to support external engagement.
  

Our Approach: People, People, People

We want Service Users to be delighted with the service they receive and offer the highest standard of domiciliary care and we believe in the importance of relationships between those we provide for and the staff we employ.

The delivery of high standard care services starts with the recruitment of high calibre staff backed up by solid processes and on-going skills development.