27th October 2010

For those of you who didn't see her, Nadra was on ITV News last night talking about Dementia Care.

The Home Office has released this morning the terms of reference for the review of CRB checks: http://www.crb.homeoffice.gov.uk/

I am on the way to Leamington Spa to chair and speak at a small seminar for care home owners, more about that tomorrow.

Twitter

National Care Association now has a Twitter account, to keep up to date with Nadra and Sheila's day to day activities and the latest information, please follow them at : http://twitter.com/nationalcareasc

26th October 2010

It has been a strange day today.

Overnight the Care Quality Commission issued a consultation document on the annual bed fees paid by registered providers. On first reading it seems to me that there is something deeply unfair about the proposals but I will read it again tomorrow.

This morning Nadra went to a breakfast meeting in London of the Dementia Action Alliance of which National Care Association is a member. Paul Burstow was at the breakfast and he and many others including Nadra signed the National Dementia Declaration.

I hope that she is at the moment being interviewed by ITN for the 6.30 news. More information about this and a photograph to follow hopefully tomorrow.

26th October 2010

Yesterday morning we arrived back in the office after all the exertions last week of staging one of our most successful conferences in recent years. Attendance was up and the quality of the speakers was very high. For the first time ever we ran two simultaneous conference on the first day one about care of people with a learning disability and the other about dementia care.

Peter Grose our solicitor was able to make an important announcement about the outcome of a Court Case about Mental Capacity and Supported Living. Peter entitled his presentation “Local Authorities and Supported Living Providers Beware”.

Members of National Care Association should contact us for a briefing document.

At the dementia conference we had invited a speaker from the United States of America, Erin Bonitto who mesmerised the delegates with her presentation about the work she is doing with care homes in the United States through an Alzheimer’s Dementia Lounge.

Amongst other things the programme is reported to significantly reduce the use of psychotropic medication. National Care Association has agreed to work closely with Erin Bonitto in the coming years to bring the benefits of her programme to the United Kingdom.

Again for a copy of Erin’s presentation please contact the office.

More about both these items to come in newsletters and emails.

Opportunity to help improve care services for adults with autism

Dear Members,

Today the Department of Health launched a consultation to help improve care services and healthcare outcomes for adults of autism in England.

I think that as a provider your views will be an important voice in shaping how the needs of adults with autism are to be met.

It will be you and your staff who will be delivering services to adults with autism and so I strongly urge you to contribute.


This consultation as well as the draft guidance document can be viewed below.
Fulfilling and rewarding lives:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_113369
Opportunity to help improve care services for adults with autism:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_118058

15th July 2010

The end of last week and the beginning of this week have been very busy with meetings, seminars etc.

Last Friday I attended a Social Care Institute for Excellence seminar in London about innovation in Social Care. Those of you who have heard me speak in the last year will know that I believe that innovation and modernisation may be part of the future for many care providers and that I think the introduction of the new regulator may allow more flexibility in the way services are provided in care homes.

This Friday Nadra will be spending the day working on briefing papers etc to be submitted to Ministers, MPs and other opinion makers about this and several other issues. As we release them we will also put them on the website so watch this space!

On Monday I went to the launch of The State of the Ault Social Care Workforce in England 2010 report. The report collates and analyses the information collected by the NMDS-SC project and makes interesting reading.

The report is available on the Skills for Care website:

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/research/research_reports/annual_reports_SCW.aspx

25th June 2010

The event in Birmingham yesterday was excellent, a great deal of emphasis on dementia care which is as it should be I think.

I’ve had a meeting here at the office with our staff about our annual conference on 20 and 21 October this morning. This year for the first time we are splitting up the Conference into two quite separate days. The first day was what we were concentrating on this morning. On that day we will be holding two separate conferences, one about dementia care and one for providers of services to adults with a learning disability.

It was the conference about dementia care that we sorted out today. We have managed to agree the conference programme and now need to hope that everyone we have invited to speak is able to attend. We have already had expressions of interest from as far away as America.

I am away from the office now for just over a week but if anything significant happens I will manage to publish an update.

Have a good weekend.

Sheila

24th June 2010

I have driven to Birmingham today for the National Care Congress. This afternoon I will be chairing the final session of the conference. I have been able to spend the morning constructively engaged. I have visited a number of exhibitors talking about new products and I have also been able to talk to Cheryl at length about our plans for the summer.

More a out that later!

22nd June 2010

I am off to a meeting in 1 hour with the new Minister. Not just me of course but with 20 other people. It should be an excellent event scheduled to last for 3 hours and I ought to come away with a much better impression of where Social Care sits within the new Government agenda .

18th June 2010

I have spoken at 2 conferences over the last week. The first was the West Yorkshire SC Partnership Conference where I spoke to more than 100 providers about the future of social care for providers.

Last night I spoke at a seminar organised by Barclays Bank alongside a speaker from CQC. This was a good event with a large number of providers and others such as accountants and solicitors present.

It made me realise we must look to the future now. There is an ever increasing number of people needing care and we must look to deliver a modern service.

But... as I said last night, Government - both local and national - and the regulator cannot continue to expect more and more services unless they have money to pay.

Vetting and Barring Scheme Announcement

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the Home Office had decided to delay (?) the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme but it was certainly very late in the day.

Many members will want to know what the arrangements are now with the CRB and which form etc. to use. All information is in the CRB section of the National Care Association Website.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/crb.asp

The big question is “is the end of the Independent Safeguarding Authority?” For once I have no idea!

National Care Association and Boots.

We are delighted to announce that Boots and National Care Association have agreed to continue their partnership.

Boots will be speaking at the Dementia Conference on 20^th October 2010 – click below….. and watch this space for more information.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/conference.asp

Survey of providers of Learning Disabilities services

I am really grateful to all those providers of services to people with Learning Disabilities for returning our Survey. If you haven’t can you please try to complete and return to us as soon as possible. If you haven’t received a copy of the survey please follow the link below:
http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/


We are going to analysis responses in mid-June. We will share the results initially with all those who responded and we will use the report in discussions with Government. We will formally launch the report at our Learning Disabilities Conference, 20th October 2010 in London. http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/conference.asp

CQC - Revised Enforcement Policy and Consultation Document

Dear Members,

Please see link below which takes you to two downloads on the revised enforcement policy and consultation document.

http://www.cqc.org.uk/getinvolved/consultations/enforcementpolicy.cfm

Wednesday 9th June 2010

Dear Members,

At last we are having a quieter week in the office giving us time to catch up with some items and also to plan for the future particularly around seminars and Annual Conference.

We are currently working on a joint meeting with the Kent Care Homes Association in Canterbury on 21 July and a seminar in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire on 28 July.

Annual Conference will be held in London on 20 and 21 October. We are having a different format this year to make it easier for people to attend.

There will be a modular structure to the conference - designed to give busy care professionals the opportunity to attend either one or both days, depending on their schedules and subjects of interest.

The developing programme will include a Dementia Care Conference and a Learning Disability Providers Conference running simultaneously on 20 October and the National Conference featuring a number of major speakers on the 21st.

The Conference will be held at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel & Conference Centre, Kensington
London.

Today I am off to a Residential Forum workshop entitled “Residential care – After the Election” so more news about that tomorrow.

5th June 2010

I went to the Great British National Care Home Awards on Saturday night which was held at the Guildhall in the London. It was a magnificent event and I presented one of the awards (Dignity in Care).

There were many people there that I hadn’t seen for years and one was an official from the Department of Health. I took the opportunity to speak to him briefly about the latest developments with CQC and re registration. I have this morning sent him an email and I hope to have a response soon. I will of course keep you informed.

Photo below is of the winners of the dignity in care award with Fiona Philips on the left and me on the right!

2nd June

I was grateful that Monday was a bank holiday which gave me time to recover from the busy schedule Nadra and I had last week.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to a prevention of infection conference held by the Department of Health in London. I think it was helpful but there was some divergence of opinion amongst the speakers.

The implementation of the Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infection is clear that regulation needs to be proportional for social care providers. That is why we are working with Peter Hawkins of ReQuired Systems to come up with a manual that is appropriate for social care providers.

More about that in a few weeks.

1st June

Last week was a very busy week for Nadra and myself. It began on Sunday 23 May when Nadra and myself travelled to Leeds in preparation for a seminar we had arranged the following day. The seminar was again about the Care Quality Commission and the re registration process and it went very well.

We then set off for Manchester where we stayed the night before another seminar the next day. We hadn’t been to Manchester for several years and this was a really successful seminar. In passing I think I should say how grateful we are to Skills for Care, the National Skills Academy for Social Care and our sponsors for supporting us at all 12 seminars we have held already in 2010.

We haven’t finished yet and are currently planning more, the next one likely to be in Beverley in Yorkshire and one later in the year in Brighton. We are also arranging a meeting in Kent in July with the Kent care Homes Association.

When the seminar in Manchester finished Nadra and I headed off to Heathrow in preparation for an early morning flight on Wednesday to Sweden. We went to attend the Conference of the European Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing (EAHSA) of which National Care Association is a member. In future we will tell members about the conferences so that you can attend if you would like to.

These conferences are immensely useful for both learning from delegates from other Countries about what is happening in social care around the world and also EAHSA examines closely technological and innovative advances which I think we need to take much more notice of.

We enjoyed the conference and at the end we were able to spend a few hours as tourists in Stockholm

Tuesday 18th May 2010



Dear Members,


After the daily updates that we began in April, issues around re registration seem to have calmed down a little and I thought it is time I got back to my blog and kept you updated with all the other things that are going on with the social care agenda as well as with the Care Quality Commission.


First of all I guess there is the general election. The Coalition has appointed the Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow to be the Minister of State responsible for Social Care.


The Minister is someone we have got to know well since he was elected to Parliament in 1997. He has always taken a close interest in Social Care so we hope that we will be able to work with him in the coming months and years to ensure that Social Care is recognised to be as essential as Health Care.


Thanks Sheila

20th May 2010

Dear Member,


I think most of you will know by now that Paul Burstow,the Liberal Democrat MP has been appointed the Minister of State for Social Care in the Department of Health.


National Care Association has known Paul since he was first elected to Parliament in 1997. Since then he has taken a very close interest in Social Care and although we haven't agreed on everything we have always worked together.


I am please to tell you that I when I answered my mobile at twenty minutes to nine last evening it was Paul Burstow calling to say that he was looking forward to working with National Care Association in the future and outlining some of his thoughts, we spoke for more than 4 minutes.


We are all delighted to have had that early contact with him and are writing to ask him to speak at our annual conference in October.

CQC re-registration

I am very concerned, as I am sure you are, that we still have no definitive information about the Care Quality Commission re-registration process due to commence on 1 April and close at the end of September.

I have just spoken to one of our solicitors, Jeremy Allin, and after discussion I have asked him to write me a briefing paper setting out the position regarding re registration from a legal point of view.

He has agreed to do this and I expect to have the letter by Friday at the latest and I will get it out to you as soon as I receive it.