What changes can you expect to inspections under the new Quality Judgement Framework? David Francis of CSSIW explains

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Change is on the way for care home inspections with the new Quality Judgement Framework.

Here, David Francis, CSSIW assistant chief inspector David Francis, sets out some of the changes providers can expect once the QJF is in place.

Why we need the Quality Judgement Framework

CSSIW is looking to develop a Quality Judgement Framework (QJF) to encourage and support services to provide care which exceeds minimum standards. We believe the use of ratings for each inspection theme will help people to choose care and will recognise those services which are striving to provide the best care.

The Regulation and Inspection Bill Wales makes provision for ratings and no scheme will be formally introduced or any ratings published until 2017 when the Bill becomes law.

We are therefore taking our time to get this right and are keen that the QJF is co-produced and people running care services are fully involved in its development. The recent stakeholder events involved more than 120 people, the vast majority being providers. The feedback and suggestions have been extremely useful.

QJF Pilot project – 15 providers across Wales taking part

15 providers are working closely with us on a model for older people’s care homes and there will be an initial inspection trial during the summer with view to a possible pilot study starting in the autumn. A project has also started to develop a model for children’s homes.

There has been strong support for the project and we are grateful for the feedback, challenges and suggestions.

There is a general desire to see if the scheme could produce a simple overall rating for a service. We want to discuss this with providers to see how this might be achieved.

We plan to:

* focus on outcomes for people not tick lists
* Use four new themes: Supporting Well-being, Quality of Care and Support, Quality of Leadership and Management and Quality of Environment
*Use four ratings against each theme, Excellent, Good, Adequate and Poor.

If anyone would like to comment or make suggestions please contact the QJF mailbox: CSSIWQualityJudgementFramework@Wales.GSI.Gov.UK