Lessons learned from other peer challenges
- Councils need an authentic narrative for their adult social care service driven by data and personal experience
- The narrative needs to be shared with those with a lived experience, carers, frontline staff, team leaders, middle managers, senior staff, corporate centre, politicians, and partners in health, the third sector and elsewhere
- Ideally this story is told consistently, is supported by data, and personal experience - do not hide poor services
- This will probably take the form of
- What are staff proud to deliver, and what outcomes can they point to?
- What needs to improve?
- What are the plans to improve services?
- In the preparation phases, consider putting it on all team agendas asking staff what they do well, what is not so good and to comment on the plans to improve. Collate the information from this process and add to the self-assessment. Ensure the self-assessment is a living document that is regularly updated
- Immediately prior to CQC arriving, ask staff what they are going to tell the regulator. How is their experience rooted in observable data and contributes to the overall departmental narrative? These stories drive the understanding of yourselves and others
- The regulator is interested in outcomes and impact from activity. The self-assessment needs to reflect this as do other documents
- The conversation with the regulator is not therapy! For those interviewed it should be a description of what they do and the impact they have had in people’s lives. Case examples written in the authentic voice of those with a lived experience bring this alive