Care show London: Chief Inspector explains why the regulator wants to streamline ‘complicated’ adult social care inspection and use AI to allow inspectors to focus on observation during visits
The adult social care chief inspector has said the new framework for inspecting care homes will aim to cut the number of quality statements used to rate care homes by a third because the inspection process does “not need to be complicated”.
In his first speech since the draft framework was published last month, the Care Quality Commission adult social care chief Chris Badger explained why summer pilots of the new framework will focus on measuring care providers’ quality against just 24 ‘key lines of inquiry’ – down from the current 34 quality statements.
Mr Badger told Care Show London delegates that he wants inspectors to focus 80 per cent of their time on observation and just 20 per cent on governance under the new inspection framework to ensure they focus on inspecting “safety and personalisation” as a priority.
And he said that the watchdog will aim to use AI as a “productivity tool” to free up inspectors time so to “use their professional judgement, their eyes and ears, crossing thresholds, either virtually or physically into a care home, to understand what's going on with care”.
“I think artificial intelligence is a good way to free up time for human intelligence,” he said, adding that the technology will help maintain inspection consistency against regulations.
The CQC is currently consulting on four separate draft frameworks for each of the sectors it inspects, which will replace the current single overarching framework for all sectors, and plans to roll out pilots over the summer. The 24 KLEs will be grouped under five key areas - safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led.
Mr Badger said “a personalised approach with a real focus on safety and wellbeing” should “underpin absolutely everything” a care provider does, and that means inspectors will focus on observation first, “ because that informs where you might want to take your inquiry around compliance.”
"We'll take, crucially, and I bang on about this to everyone, an 80/20 approach. The 80 per cent for me is observation around what you see in the care setting, and the 20 per cent [will be focused] on the governance around that.
“That's what I want in all assessments going forward,” he added.
The CQC said it is aiming to publish its final frameworks over the summer after completing the current consultation and planned pilots, with implementation scheduled for September.
