22 May 2012 - The Record Business
23 May 2012 – How to write a cracking summary
23 May 2012 - How to write a cracking chronology
24 May 2012 – Analysis made easy
25 May 2012 – Writing the best court report - EVER!
The Record Business is the foundation course - and while it is better if you can attend that first, it is not essential. Book now and see you there! Email us on office@rightthing.co.uk for the booking form. Or just call 01332 780 096. Or book through the site - you're here anyway!
Sorry but we've had some problems receiving some emails through the site. We only realised after a customer called to say she hadn't heard back from us. It's all sorted now - so if we haven't replied, could we ask you to re-send the message? Sorry for the inconvenience. Or contact us by direct e-mail: office@rightthing.co.uk
Naturally we are e-mbarrassed and want to e-merge with our e-ssential and e-stablished e-thics still in place. So hopefully you won't be e-mbittered with us and will see this as a one-off e-pisode. That's e-nough with the e-words already!
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We are delighted to announce our dates for our writing and recording master-classes in London. Yes, despite our ongoing campaign to provide regional events and training away from the capital city (things are always on there, aren't they?) we've succumbed to the big lights. And we should be charging more because it costs so much to put things on. But we won't. Hey ho. Book now for:
16 May 2012 - The Record Business
17 May 2012 – How to write a cracking summary
17 May 2012 - How to write a cracking chronology
18 May 2012 – Analysis made easy
21 May 2012 – Writing the best court report - EVER!
The Record Business is the foundation course - and while it is better if you can attend that first, it is not essential. Venue to be announced - but will be Tower Bridge area or central to east venue. Book now and see you there!
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We are delighted to announce our dates for our writing and recording master-classes in Manchester. Book now for:
30 April 2012 - The Record Business
1 May 2012 – How to write a cracking summary
1 May 2012 - How to write a cracking chronology
2 May 2012 – Analysis made easy
3 May 2012 – Writing the best court report - EVER!
The Record Business is the foundation course - and while it is better if you can attend that first, it is not essential. Venue to be announced - but will be in or close to city centre. Book now and see you there!
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We are delighted to announce our dates for our writing and recording master-classes in Leeds. Book now for:
30 May 2012 - The Record Business
31 May 2012 – How to write a cracking summary
31May 2012 - How to write a cracking chronology
1 June 2012 – Analysis made easy
2 June 2012 – Writing the best court report - EVER!
The Record Business is the foundation course - and while it is better if you can attend that first, it is not essential. Venue to be announced - but will be in or close to city centre. Book now and see you there!
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We are delighted to announce our dates for our writing and recording master-classes in Bristol. Book now for:
27 April 2012 - The Record Business
4 May 2012 – How to write a cracking summary
4 May 2012 - How to write a cracking chronology
10 May 2012 – Analysis made easy
11 May 2012 – Writing the best court report - EVER!
The Record Business is the foundation course - and while it is better if you can attend that first, it is not essential. Venue to be announced - but will be close to city centre (or at least will have good parking!)
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Here’s our latest round of feedback from courses in January 2012:
Brilliant; Interesting and informative; Enjoyable trainer; Made me think; This course was the best; Very useful; Excellent; I thought it would be boring but it was interesting and funny. The trainer was excellent; Enlightening and fun; Thought provoking; Well delivered; Brill!; Loved the course; Really useful and relevant; Wonderfully delivered; Interesting day – excellent presenter; Really good!
Naturally modesty forbids us publishing the really flattering ones!
All dates will be in May 2012 - so why not join us for our May-ster classes!
]]>CQC’s Director of Operations, Amanda Sherlock, said: “This report is a damning indictment of the regime at Winterbourne View and its systemic failings to protect the vulnerable people in its care.” One could be tempted to displace “Winterbourne View” in Sherlock’s statement with “CQC”.
Two troubling features (above numerous others) arise from this CQC report. First, how did inspectors previously fail to notice that over 60% of the basic standards required were not being met – and then were only stung into action by the media exposé? And second, the CQC and Sherlock has decidedly suspect form on all of this.
The CQC’s defence of its previous ignorance of poor standards is not that its three inspection visits between 1 December 2008 and 15 December 2009 were in any way sub-standard (after all one did pick up on the fact “there are no warning notices to show where oxygen cylinders are stored within an establishment”). Nor was it the worrying fact that it hadn’t visited the home at all for 533 days before the Panorama broadcast. No, that wasn’t the issue. The CQC routinely relies substantially on homes and services evaluating their own performance, but the provider (Castlebeck Care) “had failed in its legal duty to inform us of injuries to, or absences of, patients.” So, the real issue was that Winterbourne View staff didn’t tell the CQC how rubbish Winterbourne View truly was. How else could they know?
But while the CQC, like a regulator scorned, has given the impression that it was duped but responded robustly to right those wrongs, there is a bit of form here. On 23 November 2010, Radio 4’s File on 4 programme broadcast concerns about a certain care regulator and its handling of a home run by the now (go figure) disgraced provider, Southern Cross, who suspended 12 staff following a police investigation.
The transcript of the interview between BBC’s Fran Abrams and the CQC’s good practice mouthpiece reveals a somewhat clanging echo:
ABRAMS: Why didn’t you go in? Why didn’t you do something?
SHERLOCK: We did go in when we found out that service standards were deteriorating. What our review of this case has demonstrated is that this home were remiss in informing the regulator when serious incidents were occurring.
So, in essence: "This home also didn’t tell us it wasn’t any good!" No shit, Sherlock! And this at a time when the CQC is reducing its inspections to homes and services. Or, in the weasel words of the regulator: “some level of planned regulatory activity with the registered provider”. But that doesn’t necessarily mean an inspection visit (sorry, “crossing the threshold”).
No inspection system can ever be perfect. But the CQC needs to stop blaming everybody else. Indeed, in this interview Sherlock points the finger – not at any of the operations of which she is director – but, er, us: Joe Public.
ABRAMS: But you’re going to be relying very heavily, aren’t you, on self-assessment by the homes?
SHERLOCK: This cannot be the sole responsibility of the regulator. In my experience, if there is a poor home in a community, then the community know about that, and what we need to be better at is ensuring that that information and that local knowledge is passed to ourselves as the regulator so that we can intervene and we can avoid dreadful tragedies and poor standards and unacceptable standards of care.
Trouble is, in Winterbourne View’s case, the CQC were told: whistles were blown, concerns were raised. And the CQC responded by doing precisely nothing. Dame Jo Williams, The CQC chair, at least admitted that this was “unforgivable”. For once, no weasel words and a CQC sentiment with which to concur.
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The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has apologised for its “failure to act more swiftly”. Regulation is not, nor can it be, perfect. But, seemingly, the CQC graces itself with little favour. First, its “light touch” inspection regime means that places such as Winterbourne View where very little has caused the CQC concern in the past (perhaps a worry in itself) would not even be inspected once a year.
Second (and I will expand on this point on a later post), the very quality of the light-touch inspection process appears weak. Read the previous three inspection reports and you only get a sense that all the inspectors are interested in is records, policies and procedures. People don’t seem to be part of it (unless it’s the manager or senior being available to dig the relevant leaflet or policy). The inspection reports are thoughtlessly designed, bureaucratic, poorly written and jargon-filled. I can imagine relatives and staff struggling with phrases such as “the occlusion of windows” let alone the people who matter most: those who actually live there.
We get no sense of the quality of life being experienced, the quality of relationships between all those who live, work or visit the place. Maybe if the inspectors had concentrated more on speaking to the service users (or so-called patients as this is a hospital setting) then they might have picked up on the appalling and shocking abuse that has clearly been taking place over some time and has developed into fairly standard practice. CQC set itself up in a blaze of “putting the service user at the heart of inspection”. If these reports are typical then that heart has been ripped out in favour of inspection findings that centre on “no warning notices in place to show where oxygen cylinders are stored within the establishment”.
I’m sure warning notices are important. But what about warnings about the care? What about the relationships? What is a day in the life of someone living there like? For inspectors not to find out this basic care stuff is also, I suggest, appalling and shocking.
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