Monitor policy
Introduction
Your Life, Your Choice Bexley is an easy-to-use online platform that offers people the opportunity to connect with providers who work locally, to arrange their own support with little involvement from the Council putting people in charge of living the life they want.
Target Audience
This platform is for residents who pay full cost for their care or have been provided with a personal budget/Direct Payment by the Council or partner organisations managing Individual Service Funds on behalf of residents. The resident has full responsibility to apply personal budget/Direct Payment funds towards the care that they need.
The Council’s Role
The council has developed and will maintain the platform, promoting it with potential providers and suppliers it considers would be useful for residents to be aware of. The expectation is that providers will proactively register on the platform, so the Council will not be held responsible for ‘regulating providers’ that register for the platform.
How the Platform will be Monitored
The council will monitor those providers that offer regulated services, i.e. those registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) or other statutory regulatory bodies and remove providers when their CQC rating drops to Inadequate. We will not notify the provider when this happens as they will be aware of the change in their rating via CQC.
Providers will be able to re-register on the platform once their CQC rating has improved.
How we see Residents Interacting with the Platform
Residents can use the platform to identify providers working locally that they may wish to engage to provide support to them so they remain active and happy living in their own home. Residents and those acting on their behalf will be able to see and consider the range of ways their care and support needs might be supported, including more opportunities for social activities of interest.
Care and support is built on relationships residents have with those that support them, so residents can return to the platform at any time to change providers, identify new services they may wish to access. Residents will be encouraged to direct concerns about the quality and responsiveness of the service via our adult social care teams.
Residents can also contact adult social care to discuss any changes in need or a change in requirements for services, also for advice, or request a review or a formal Care Act assessment.
What Happens when CQC Rating Change
Where providers are required to undertake improvement plans through a down grading of their CQC rating, which does not reduce it to Inadequate, they will remain on the platform as they continue to be monitored and supported by both the CQC and Bexley’s Quality Assurance (QA) Team. The Bexley Quality Assurance Teams monitors all providers registered in the borough and jointly monitor those providers registered outside of the borough with their host borough when we formally commission services from them.
The Role of the Quality Assurance Team in Bexley
The QA Team monitor community providers that are CQC regulated or who contracts with the Adult Social Care
The QA Team help to ensure Regulatory and Contract Compliance of the Providers and try to ensure a good consistent standard of service delivery.
The QA team carry out both announced, unannounced and reactive visits to providers. They gather intelligence from many different sources including publicly available information, CQC inspections, safeguarding referrals, internal quality alerts, information from other local authorities, professional bodies and most importantly from people who access their services.
Providers receive a report from the QA team following a visit or review of their service detailing what they found, what is working well, and any actions and/or recommendations/suggestions for the Provider to address/take on board, within a reasonable timeframe. The QA Team will then follow up to ensure the actions have been addressed and corrective measures put in place.
Expectations of Providers on The Platform
Where concerns are raised by residents accessing services from a provider on the Platform, the Council has an expectation that:
- the provider will respond professionally to these concerns
- ensure actions are taken to resolve the concern and avoid it happening in the future
- provide the council with any information that is reasonable for it to request and work with the council (QA/safeguarding teams) to ensure services are provided to the highest standards.
The resident is engaging the services of the provider directly through the Platform and concerns/complaints must be addressed and concluded directly with the Provider. The Council’s key involvement is including providers on the Platform to enable services to be secured by residents. The Council’s input will not include resolving concerns/complaints between the resident and the provider since the engagement is between the two parties. The resident may refer feedback to the Council’s Quality Assurance Team which will be considered.