The government has decided to drop plans for an excellence award for social care providers after it was universally rejected by the sector.
Speaking at the National Care Association conference this week, Care Quality Commission chair Jo Williams said: “It’s clear yourselves and others have said it’s not going to work and it doesn’t add value. We put all the results of our consultation to the Department of Health and while we’ve not had a formal response I saw the minister [Paul Burstow] and he understands it’s a universal thumbs down so I can’t see it happening. The climate isn’t there because everyone is saying it won’t deliver the goods.”
During a consultation on the plans, providers expressed a number of concerns about the award. Some major issues stemmed from the fact that there would be no gradations of quality for judging providers below “excellent” and that applications for the award would be voluntary, meaning there was no marker of quality to distinguish those that did not apply.
The National Care Association has responded by calling the move away from the scheme as “a triumph of common sense”. They added that they had always maintain that the proposal was “the wrong scheme at the wrong time, particularly in terms of the financial constraints.”
