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Care Magazine - Summer 2011 - Issue 18

Summer 2011 edition now available to download.

Care Magazine - the quarterly newsletter from Skills for Care for everyone who has a part to play in improving the skills and knowledge of those working in social care in England.

http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=9993&sID=213

All issues can be found at: http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/news/care_magazine/care_magazine.aspx

Supporting training of Personal Assistants and Social Workers with training

See attachements for two useful documents for supporting training of Personal Assistants and Social Workers with training

Attachments:
Sept 09 Right Skills Right practice saveasdialog.pdf	[Right Skills, Right Practice Transforming the Adult Social Care Workforce for the Personalisation of Care Services]	261 Kb
SW Training Providers exec vweb.pdf	[innovation in learning designing and delivering a training programme for personal assistants and social workers]	560 Kb

Review of Health and Social Care National Occupational Standards (NOS) 2011

Health and Social Care (HSC) National Occupational Standards (NOS) are the authoritative occupational standards for people who work in health and social care settings with adults and/or children across the UK.

A full review of the HSC NOS is taking place this year. The review will consider all 215 of the HSC NOS and bring them up to date.

The review is the joint work of Skills for Care & Development (the partnership of Skills for Care, Children's Workforce Development Council, Care Council for Wales, General Social Care Council, Northern Ireland Social Care Council and Scottish Social Services Council) and Skills for Health.

On behalf of the adult social care sector in England, Skills for Care will contribute to the review using the extensive consultation material that we have recently gathered to develop new qualifications.

In addition, if you would like to participate in this survey and comment on the groups of NOS please follow the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CL5XVWP

A revised draft of the NOS will be available for consideration from the summer onwards.

The closing date for the survey is Monday 20 June 2011.

13th to 17th June is Carers Week

With the help of carers and the professionals who work with them, Skills for Care and Skills for Health have produced Carers Matter - Everybody's Business, guidance to help employers and organisations improve the support to carers through learning and development of staff. It is based on a set of Common Core Principles for Working with Carers.

The Government is committed to improving carers’ experiences of services by making sure that training on carer awareness is an accepted part of the landscape – in social care, health and in other services. The Department of Health asked Skills for Care and Skills for Health to work on materials to help make this happen and to provide greater standardisation and guidance in delivery and approach in a field where a lot of different products and approaches have already been developed. As a result of this work, the government have said that Carers Matter – Everybody’s Business ‘will enable commissioners to devise bespoke training for their local health and social care workforce’ (Recognised, Valued and Respected; Next Steps for the Carers Strategy HM Govt 2010).

Carers Matter - Everybody's Business is guidance and tools that enable training to be commissioned or developed to reflect local workforce needs, local settings and context. It aims to be flexible enough to be developed in a variety of ways to meet differing working and learning needs.

Carers Matter - Everybody's Business is a valuable resource because it:

§ provides a set of national (England) common core principles for working with carers and a framework for planning carer-awareness training. You should base any training you develop or deliver upon these to meet the national standard.

§ Helps you define the areas in which staff need to improve their skills and knowledge.

§ enhances existing carer-awareness training you are providing to professionals by providing a national framework and fresh ideas.

§ includes a bank of ideas and activities you could use to begin to deliver training.

§ Provides carers with a standard to which professionals are expected to work.

Positive impact

Carers of Barking and Dagenham have already used Carers Matter – Everybody’s Business in various strategic meetings with the local council and primary care trust. Lorraine Goldberg, Executive Director said it helped develop “more knowledge of current issues that carers are facing, the current practice of different services and the barriers that staff face in their day to day job.”

Helen Gough from Carers Support Wiltshire, who used Carers Matters – Everybody’s Business to develop and deliver training at Beversbrook Medical Centre, Calne, said: “Instantly I was really impressed with it, and really excited by it actually – there was new stuff there… and it is really useful, particularly the common assumptions and the common core principles, which we are likely to use a lot.”

For more information on Carers Matters – Everybody’s Business please visit: www.skillsforcare.org.uk/carers or www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/carers-matter

Great British Care Awards - Nominations now open

Do you have care champion in your region?

Following on from the enormous success of the Great British Care Awards national finals, we are delighted to launch the regional events for the Autumn of this year.

The Great British Care Awards are a series of regional events throughout England and are a celebration of excellence across the care sector . The purpose of the awards are to pay tribute to those individuals who have demonstrated outstanding excellence within their field of work. There are 9 regional awards leading to 2 national finals for both the home care and care home sectors, to be held at London's magnificent Royal Courts of Justice in Spring 2012.

There are 22 awards categories available for nomination, which represent all areas of the social care sector, whether it be older people or specialist services, residential or home care. From frontline staff such as care workers and care managers to people who have made an impact in other ways such as training and innovation.

All Inclusive

The awards are all inclusive, bringing together the statutory, independent and voluntary sectors, as well as unpaid carers; promoting joint working. Working in partnership with care partners and local care associations is at the heart of the initiative; working and linking directly with local managers and networks to further promote the event.

Nominate your staff, company, colleagues and give them the recognition they deserve!

To nominate online please click here

For further information on this region and the option to download and print out a nomination form please click on your region!

SOUTH WEST

New Categories for 2011!

The Frontline Leaders Award

The Good Commissioner Award

The Housing With Care Award

The Home Care Coordinator Award

Raise your organisational profile and motivate your staff

Sponsorship opportunities are available at one, some or all of the regional events for the 2011 and 2012 regional awards. The awards provide a unique opportunity to gain maximum exposure with key influencers from across the sector.

National Support

The awards have received support from across the social care sector, including the Department of Health, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), Ceretas, the English Community Care Association (ECCA), the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), the National Skills Academy for Social Care and Skills for Care.

Good luck and we hope to see you all in the Autumn!

Team GBCA

Michelle Sanderson

Great British Care Awards

21 Regent Street

Nottingham NG1 5BS

t: 0115 959 6133

f: 0115 959 6148

e: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.care-awards.co.uk

Skills for Care launch Workforce Development Strategy

Skills for Care has launched a Workforce Development Strategy to help create a capable, confident and skilled adult social care workforce across England.

The strategy, developed in partnership with employers, key partners and the Department of Health recognises that the 1.6 million people who work in the sector are one of the most valuable assets in social care.

The Government's Vision for Adult Social Care: Capable Communities and Active Citizens emphasised that people have an important part to play in taking forward the reform programme, people with the right skills working in the right places. The Workforce Development Strategy supports employers in developing a workforce that is equipped to achieve greater personalisation.

The strategy also offers clear deliverables to support workforce commissioning, planning and development to meet the new vision and priorities for adult social care.

The implementation of this strategy to meet the vision will be led by those working in the sector, their employers and employer-led organisations by people who use services, carers and by those wider assets in neighbourhoods and communities which contribute to make it a reality.

The Workforce Development Strategy can be downloaded at www.skillsforcare.org.uk/wds the Recruitment and Retention Strategy can be downloaded at www.skillsforcare.org.uk/recruitmentandretentionstrategy and the Workforce Development Fund is available at www.skillsforcare.org.uk/wdf

More information and downloads: http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/news/latest_news/workforce_development_strategy_launch.aspx

NMDS-SC Briefing Issue 15 - Improvements made to NMDS-SC Over the past year

NMDS-SC Briefings are a series of short briefing publications highlighting some of the findings and key analyses coming out of the NMDS-SC. Generally they focus on a particular topic area, for example rates of pay, qualification levels, etc. Future issues of Briefings will look at some new topic areas, while updating previous issues with the latest NMDS-SC data.

NMDS-SC Briefing Issue 15 - Improvements made to NMDS-SC Over the past year

A range of improvements have been made to the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) in 2010 - 11 in response to feedback and requests by employers and other stakeholders.

This briefing describes these developments which should considerably enhance the benefits to employers using the NMDS-SC NMDS-SC Briefing Issue 15 - Improvements made to NMDS-SC Over the past year.

Download NMDS-SC Briefing Issue 15 - Improvements made to NMDS-SC over the past year: https://www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk/Get.aspx?id=657719

All previous briefings: http://www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk/research/researchdocs.aspx?id=1

The value of learning - creating a learning organisation

"The Value of Learning – creating a learning organisation” is a Manager’s Toolkit produced by Skills for Care in the South West in 2009. Although this is slightly dated it is still a very valuable tool for managers to use and adapt to present situations. It includes a useful questionnaire on personalisation and many other useful tools.

Attachments:
Managers_Guide_Introduction_&_The_Learning_Organisation.pdf	[ ]	348 Kb

NMDS-SC: Information sharing with the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, all adult social care providers who provide regulated activities are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Once a provider is registered, CQC will monitor whether they continue to meet the essential standards of safety and quality and will use a range of information to inform this process.

Results of a recent employer consultation strongly supported information being shared directly with CQC from the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC). This will help to minimise the amount of information CQC needs from providers as part of the compliance monitoring process.

Your NMDS-SC data can now be shared with CQC to minimise the amount of information they need from you. When you log in to NMDS-SC you will need to confirm that you are happy with this. You can check the permissions you have allowed by viewing your establishment details and ‘editing’ if necessary.

To ensure the data CQC receives is accurate, you should check that the information you have entered into your NMDS-SC account is up to date.

A first series of data items from NMDS-SC has now been shared with CQC. CQC will use this data to develop indicators for the Quality and Risk Profile (QRP) for each regulated provider of adult social care services (including where services are provided in health settings). QRPs are being developed to enable CQC to assess the level of risk of a provider not meeting the essential standards and prompt front line regulatory activity.

The first series of data items from NMDS-SC includes data on vacancies, turnover rates and the ratio of temporary to permanent staff. Work will take place over the next few months to develop indicators based on worker data e.g. qualifications by job role. No individual will be identifiable from the data shared with CQC. The following data items will not be shared: workers’ pay, workers’ sickness absence, workers’ age/date of birth, workers’ ethnicity, workers’ nationality, country of birth, year of arrival in the UK, and workers’ additional hours worked in the last 7 days. Instead benchmarks will be developed from anonymised NMDS-SC data to inform the QRP for regulated providers.

For more information on the detailed consultation with employers and the final evaluation report please click here.

For more information about QRPs please go to CQC’s website

NMDS-SC Briefing 14 : Levels of migrant workers in the adult social care workforce

Source: http://www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk/news/View.aspx?1048

Issue 14 of NMDS-SC Briefings reports on the levels of migrant workers in the adult social care workforce.

The sector has traditionally been associated with high levels of migrant workers and this is the first time that we have been able to accurately report to the social care sector and to central government on this issue.

This Briefing explores levels of reliance on migrant workers and how this differs by geography, main service and sector. It also includes information on the migrant workers themselves including demographics, employment status, pay rates and qualifications.

To read the findings in more detail, click here to access the NMDS-SC Briefing issue 14.

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