GB-London: staff support

The Health and Care Act 2022 puts CQC assurance of local authorities on a statutory footing. The new duty on the CQC to assess local authorities' delivery of their adult social care duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014 came into effect on 1st April 2023. Five end to end pilots of the assessment process have just completed and we have a pause for review before the first tranche of 20 councils is rolled out from December to the end of March 2024.

Partners in Care and Health (PCH) is a partnership of the Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and is funded by Government. PCH helps councils to improve the way they deliver adult social care and public health services and helps Government understand the challenges faced by the sector. PCH's programme is a trusted network for developing and sharing best practice, developing tools and techniques, providing support, and building connections.

PCH are offering a programme of facilitated workshops for staff to any interested council. We have trialled this approach with two pilot councils with positive feedback and are rolling out this offer more widely in the sector through the workshop model we have developed.

This support we require to be delivered is face to face, in person, workshop sessions, using our workshop model over two days (2.5 days in negotiation maximum) in a council provided venue for groups of selected frontline staff and managers. The sessions will clearly set out the CQC assurance process, highlight the Council's self-assessment, Vision and key strategies for ASC, simulate the lines of questioning CQC inspection will take with different groups of staff across the ASC service. A key objective is to increase staff confidence in articulating their own narrative.

We have the model for this supports and some materials eg suggested questions, to base your work on. There will need to be a degree of tailoring with the individual councils to suit their needs due to geography etc. A regional colleague will be available to support you to deliver the sessions.

Additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.