Know your staff team – Knowing your staff team is the best way to avoid surprises when it comes to your next inspection be discrete but understanding your teams’ goals and personal plans can help avoid a change of key staff just before the next inspection. If a manager has an intention to leave encourage dialogue so that you can work together to ensure a positive handover.
Review all care plans – Make sure they are up to date and accurately reflect the needs of service users/residents. Ensure that they clearly show your support team know the person, their needs, preferences and contain plans for any known illnesses or accessibility needs.
The paperwork is important – Check incident/accident records are up to date and that if necessary, practice has been adjusted to avoid repeats. If any training has been introduced then show a link between the learning and the incident/accident.
Ensure your values are visible – Shadow the team from a distance, observe how the team interact with each other, with service users, family carers, visitors and ensure they are displaying the values of empathy, dignity and respect. Following your review if work around communication and values needs to take place start now, changing behaviour takes time.
Safeguarding – Get on top of any safeguarding investigations and make sure all necessary paperwork is completed correctly, process has been followed and the paperwork is together. Ensure that the communication lines are transparent, who you contacted, when you contacted them and when CQC. Check if care plans have been updated to reflect the safeguarding.
Refresh key training – Use team meetings to refresh key training ahead of any inspection. MCA/DOL, safeguarding and whistleblowing are all key areas so it pays to support staff to answer simple questions about the reason why it's needed and the processes. Training doesn’t have to be formal or complex just ensure staff have a basic understanding.
Discover people’s opinions in advance – it always pays to understand early on if you staff or residents/service users have any issues around the service. Conduct surveys in advance, record them and register any improvements or changes in practice you implement afterwards. Carry out surveys regularly as part of normal quality control and good practice.
Is it going well? – It may seem obvious but are you currently breaching any CQC regulations or behind on implementing any action from a previous inspection? If you find you are put your plans to remedy the issue in place immediately don’t leave it to others and don’t leave it too long you will struggle to improve your rating with a breach of regulations.
Feel the heat! – it's often called a “temperature check” but you need to be able to understand how your staff view the organisation and how they may respond to certain questions. Talk to staff individually, formally or informally about how they find work and importantly how they find working for you. It's sometimes difficult for a manager or leader to ask the team questions about their style so ask someone independent to do it … you can guarantee a good inspector will!
