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GO Online: Inspection toolkit

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Safe environments

The environment which people live in should be both appropriate to their needs and protect them from harm. In order to meet this area of CQC inspection, your service will need to be effective in how you detect and control risks.

The following film provides a summary of this area of inspection. It can help you and your teams learn about what will be inspected and what is important to demonstrate to deliver good or outstanding care.

Introducing Safe environments

Duration 02 min 12 sec

The CQC will want to know that your environment is safe. This applies to both residential care environments, as well as protecting people as much as possible in their own homes. It also extends to the safety of equipment too.

In residential services, CQC inspectors will look at the communal areas and people’s rooms to ensure that these are being safely maintained. Inspectors will want to know how you are involving the people you support in decisions about the environment they live in and potentially the grounds of a residential home.

There may be some inspection crossover here with your Infection, prevention and control approach and safety measures related to food and hydration and storage of hazardous substances. The CQC may also look at how you mitigate environment risks too.

For people living in their own homes, carers play an important role in identifying hazards and helping people to keep as safe as possible. This is not about limiting their independence, but it is about protecting them from avoidable harm. Community-based services will also need to demonstrate how you support your staff to stay safe when working alone.

The CQC inspector focus is not just limited to the environment either. Inspectors will want to know about how you protect people from harm using safe equipment, including any technology and others aids that you use to deliver care.

It is important to ensure any equipment you use is safely maintained and staff are effectively trained to use it. Build in safety checks into your quality and compliance and ensure you can evidence when these were done and what action was taken if needed.

As part of the inspection, the CQC are likely to speak with people about how you protect them on these matters, as well as view documented evidence from safety checks, consultations, quality assurance, training etc.

To learn more about how your service can be best prepared for this area of CQC inspection, look at the recommendations, examples, and resources available in GO Online.

Watch the film here:

Recommendations

These recommendations act as a checklist to what the CQC will be looking for. 国产乱伦 has reviewed hundreds of inspection reports and identified these recommendations as recurring good practice in providers that meet CQC expectations.

The CQC is non-prescriptive, which means they don’t tell you what must be done in order to meet their Quality Statement. These recommendations are not intended to be a definitive list and some recommendations might not be relevant to your service. We hope they help you reflect on what evidence you might wish to share with the CQC.

Safe environments

  • We make it everyone's business to ensure a safe environment but encourage 鈥榣ive鈥� reporting of issues including team members, the people we support, family friends, other professionals etc.
  • We can evidence that people live in safe environments and are protected from harm (e.g., maintenance plan etc.).
  • We conduct regular fire safety practices by trained and competent staff at all residential and/or office environments.
  • We check the safety of all fire equipment and effectively train staff to identify and respond to associated risks.
  • All equipment is stored securely.
  • Our facilities, equipment and technology are well-maintained, including regular cleaning, safety checks and replacements. We ensure maintenance certificates are effectively filed for future reference.
  • Wherever and whenever needed, we will use external specialists to check the safely of our environment and equipment.
  • We act swiftly to repair any equipment that requires maintenance or has broken down with temporary measures in place.
  • We ensure our emergency plans provide sufficient information to protect people (e.g., fire safety, gas leaks, or equipment breaking down).
  • We use an effective safety management system for risks and hazards, as well as quality assurance processes to identify and improve safety.
  • Where relevant to our service, we conduct regular checks of kitchen equipment and utensils to ensure they鈥檙e safe to use (e.g., taking fridge temperature checks).
  • Where relevant to our service, we undertake environmental risk assessments of people鈥檚 own homes and advise about safety considerations, referrals to the fire service, pest control etc.
  • Where we have reviewed and actioned any issues related to our environment and/or equipment, these are documented in our improvement plan.
  • Our contingency plans include focus and mitigations related to environmental issues including flooding, bad weather, heatwave, and impact of loss of premises.
  • We feedback environmental incidents to team members, people we support and families.
  • We discuss planned work for our own care setting with everyone concerned to ensure safe planning and implementation of any work.
  • Our contingency plans align closely with wider infection prevention and control measures and wider outbreak management.
  • We are proactive in signing up for heatwave and cold weather planning alerts.
  • Where environment or equipment risks are outside of our direct control, we ensure that these are escalated to those responsible.
  • We ensure our environment and premises are designed in a way that minimises risks to people, visitors, and staff (e.g., safe storage of wheelchairs, handrails, bed rails, etc.).
  • Where relevant to our service, we ensure our environment protects people from psychological harm, responding to sensory needs and other issues that might impact a person鈥檚 ability to feel safe.
  • We have safety systems in place which protect but do not restrict people.
  • We鈥檙e proactive in sourcing and promoting assistive living technologies and/or adaptive equipment to help people maintain or develop their independence. Safety is a key part of our procurement process.
  • We risk assess and ensure that our staff are fully supported to be as safe as possible when working alone (e.g., in parts of the residential home, whilst working in the community, or home working).
  • Where any serious issues occur, we will report as appropriate to RIDDOR, CQC and commissioners as relevant. Investigations and follow-up actions will be responded to promptly and transparently.
  • We discuss any incidents / near misses at regular meetings across the service.

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