The Government has completed its review which centred on cutting red tape across governmental departments. The review included a review of adult social care. The aims of the review more broadly were to commit to cutting £10bn of red tape to reduce unnecessary regulation and ineffective enforcement whilst ensuring protections for certain areas are not diminished in favour of achieving this goal.
In particular, in relation to adult social care, the report found that reducing duplication of inspection visits and commissioning services activity would reduce red tape and bureaucracy with minimal impact on the supervision of care services. Removing these duplicitous visits would also have a positive impact on the deployment of manpower and better use of data to target those services and areas that require additional oversight.
The report looks to improve quality whilst reducing the administrative and regulatory burdens on business. It aims to maintain the necessary protections to enable the regulator to perform its stated ambitions.
Some of the other key findings from the report include:-
· There is a need to define the roles of different public agencies and reduce overlap of workloads;
· The burden of monitoring activities negatively impacts care and staff resident time interaction;
· The burden of monitoring activities potentially negatively impacts the broader care market in general and provides a barrier to entry;
· Local Authority contract monitoring/ CQC Inspection requirements result in significant duplication of visits and information requests;
· There is an inconsistent approach between local authorities which can lead to confusion about what each authority needs and a duplication in the data collected in different forms;
· People are unsure of the role of the CCG and they don’t always work well with the Local Authority and CQC which can lead to unnecessary amounts of time being spent on any particular matter; and
· There is a lack of joined-up thinking between different governmental bodies so the cumulative effect of positive actions is not experienced owing to the disjointed nature of practice.
The Governments goals of inspiring coordination between agencies and cutting down on duplication amongst others would help to drive up quality within the sector. It would require the cooperation of a number of agencies and potentially lead to a streamlining of governmental bodies. Please click here for the findings of the Cutting Red Tape report in relation to adult social care.
